Completely Absurd on Ethics

There was ample time for Republicans of all kinds --Congressional Republicans, statewide elected Republicans, legislative Republicans-- to stake out a position in opposition to Rod Jetton's clearly untoward political consulting business when the issue first arose a couple years ago.   Of course, none of them did. 

Not Sarah Steelman, not Peter Kinder, not Kenny Hulshof.  None of those moral midgets thought Rod Jetton's consulting arrangement, which was as inappropriate then as it was during this session, was something with which they should concern themselves. 

But now that Jetton is a lame duck, term-limited Speaker who has lowered the gavel on his last meaningful legislative session these prominent Republicans are falling over one another trying to find a podium or an open mic from which they can tsk at Jetton and feign outrage at a practice of his they've known about since early 2006. 

This isn't about "good government" or anyone's heartfelt belief in the importance of ethics.  It's about plain old ugly opportunism.  Republicans are now pretending to care about the corrupt manner in which the ruling regime has governed for the last four years because doing so has become a cost-free exercise. 

Only now that there is nothing to be gained by propping up Matt Blunt's ridiculously ethics-free administration or the pay-to-play tenure of Rod Jetton in the Missouri House are these folks coming forward to be heard.  Previously, if Hulshof or Steelman or Kinder had piped up about Jetton's crookery in the legislature they risked retribution --and they knew it-- so they made the calculation and opted not to speak out.

But with the executioner honing his blade and staring down a Speaker whose official powers have waned, Hulshof, Steelman and Kinder are singing like philosophical co-conspirators rushing to unburden themselves of their silent complicity.

Now that may amount to a lot of things (cold-hard pragmatism, finger-in-the-wind malleability or reckless political ambition, to name a few) but it doesn't add up to an earnest position of principle. 

So while Jetton deserves whatever he gets --and he deserves plenty, notwithstanding the ludicrous claims of some that this blog is perversely supportive of Jetton (admittedly, we've always thought Jetton a scumbag even if he was uniquely transparent and affable in his scumbaggery)-- none of his sudden detractors deserve any credit or plaudits for pointing out the man's indiscretions.

These are, after all, people who watched Jetton ply his trade in the Missouri capitol and said nothing until they thought there was political hay to be made by forcing a fellow partisan toward the plank.  In the face of Jetton's possibly criminal acts, Hulshof, Steelman and Kinder should have done the only honorable thing available to them: sat silently and hoped that no one noticed that they let his act go on for so long.  Instead, they chose to betray their own histories of fecklessness on the issue of Jetton's ethics and make a spectacle now, long after their chance to do so on principle shriveled up and tumbled away.