COMMENTARY: From 3,000 Miles Away, the Rot Is Fairly Easy to See

c. 2006 Religion News Service EUREKA, Calif. _ This fog-shrouded port city of about 25,000 people is a long way from Washington, D.C., and former Rep. Mark Foley’s sadly salacious e-mails to young congressional pages. Known as the “Lost Coast” and so remote that settlers didn’t find it until 1850, Eureka now straddles fabled Highway […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

EUREKA, Calif. _ This fog-shrouded port city of about 25,000 people is a long way from Washington, D.C., and former Rep. Mark Foley’s sadly salacious e-mails to young congressional pages.

Known as the “Lost Coast” and so remote that settlers didn’t find it until 1850, Eureka now straddles fabled Highway 101 far north of San Francisco and lures travelers with a charming Old Town and brightly painted Victorian houses. Some even leave higher-paying jobs elsewhere to seek a better life here.


From this vantage point _ a remote but thoroughly modern area where people worry about the demise of the logging industry, lack of other jobs and departing young people _ the end-of-empire collapse of public ethics in Washington seems a defining moment.

We knew our leadership class was corrupt _ power does that to people _ we just didn’t know how corrupt. It isn’t just Foley’s pathetic hustling of 16-year-old male pages. It’s the way his colleagues winked at his proclivities for years because they benefited from his largess. It’s the ugliness of the powerful treating pages, interns and young aspirants as their harem.

It’s the spectacle of House Speaker Dennis Hastert fighting to retain his job, not to show buck-stops-here leadership. It’s the familiar cycle after malfeasance is unearthed: an expression of minimal remorse, followed by a macho determination not to cave in, then a self-appointed committee to investigate, giving the appearance of action in hopes of reversing polls.

It’s the immediate rush of Christian conservatives to score culture-war points by using Foley’s behavior as the next wedge against homosexuals.

This rot at the center seems stark from Humboldt Bay, a deep-water port on the Pacific Ocean that once bustled with logging trade and fishing but now, like much of the nation, wonders anxiously where its future lies. They fight over restrictions on logging redwoods, Wal-Mart’s determination to get in, and how far to go down the tourist-town path. They try to imagine a future when not enough new jobs are being created. The political realities of California don’t work in their favor.

They aren’t alone in such worries. Thousands of communities are struggling to make their way in a changing world. Jobs are vanishing, income is falling (except for the rich), citizens are concerned about the basics of life, from education to water. Many citizens worry daily about external attack.

In Washington, however, it’s sex and power, campaign funds and polls, macho posing, dodging accountability and sending other parents’ children to war.


Even worse, it’s unconcern. Washington’s political class seems immune to shame and deaf to a nation’s actual worries. They manipulate the religious. They make promises but avoid action. They sell government’s favors to high bidders. They rig election districts to make their tenures perpetual. They use war in Iraq and Afghanistan to frighten voters but do nothing to preserve military capability or to hold leaders accountable.

Glimpses of this rot _ a sobering parallel to the final days of the Roman Empire _ pour daily from Washington. But if you stand far enough back, perhaps in a logging town 3,000 miles away, the daily headlines form a tragic picture: a divided nation facing huge challenges, needing to join hands to define a worthy future, being manipulated by officeholders and their special-interest and religious bedfellows. Meanwhile, a Florida congressman solicits sex from bewildered boys and his colleagues see discovery as the only danger.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

KRE/PH END EHRICH

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