Suppose one of the richest men in your town got into a dispute with city hall.
This fellow claimed he’s owed a ton of money. He runs for mayor. When he wins, he installs his friends and former employers in key posts. After they express gratitude for the cushy new jobs, he tells them he wants them to give him the money he claims he’s owed. He doesn’t want to hear criticism about the claims being on the dubious-to-bogus end of the scale.
Suppose you were reading this story in the local paper. How long would it take you to realize that the taxes you pay on your house are going to pay off the mayor?
If you’re thinking about the Current Occupant of the White House and his demand that the Justice Department pay him $230 million, we are of like minds.
I wish the newspapers I read had told this story in a different way. When I read accounts of the news, I read about unprecedented ethical conflicts and about how this development has no parallel in American history.
The instincts of the journalists I was reading was to find the abstractions. I think they’d have written better stories if they’d found the ordinary, the everyday.
If this had happened in the town we all live in, we would see it for what it is: not an unprecedented ethical conflict but a heist.
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