Does Politics Make You Corrupt or Is Corruption a Prerequisite for Politics?

“In the surest sign yet that the … former CNN talker seriously plans to enter politics, Lou Dobbs has already flip-flopped on the question of amnesty for people illegally living in this country.”

Andrew Malcolm
Los Angeles Times

In a single sentence, Andrew Malcolm may well have captured the essence of the corruption inherent in American politics. Read the sentence above again. It’s too important to miss. …I’ll wait…

Here it is again, rephrased as a general axiom:

If someone dramatically alters his views on an issue overnight, he’s planning on going into politics (or is already there).

Lou Dobbs

You know Lou Dobbs. Until a few weeks ago he was CNN’s token conservative newsreader.

At least for conservatives, the pinnacle of Mr. Dobbs’ career occurred on May 23, 2007 when he reported on an immigration bill that was grinding its way through congress. House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio publicly had called the bill “a piece of shit.”

Rep John Boehner

Cleaning up the language for the kiddies, Mr. Dobbs reported this on CNN and then went on to explain in detail why the bill was, in fact, “a piece of shit.” (The bill, introduced during the Bush administration, eventually died but the Obama gang has vowed to introduce its own immigration piece of shit as soon as it has finished with its health care piece of shit and its Afghanistan piece of shit).

Dobbs’ video became a YouTube classic but offended the Hispanic community for the usual reasons. They took objection to his less than sympathetic references to things like no back taxes, amnesty for everybody including gang members, permanent temporary visas, in-state school tuition for illegals, and on and on.

On November 11 this year Dobbs announced he was leaving CNN. Apparently he was too “radical” for the Atlanta liberals and it was mutually agreed that he would depart. Almost immediately he announced that he was considering a run either for the senate or the presidency.

His first official act as a potential candidate was radically to change his position on one of the key issues in American politics: illegal immigration.

Piece of Shit

Last Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Maria Celeste of the Spanish-language network Telemundo that he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers. He went on to tell Celeste, “Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together.”

Mr. Dobbs has a plan to grant amnesty to as many as 12 million illegal immigrants in the US, saying that “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”

So here’s today’s 10-point toss-up question: Do you have to be corrupt to go into politics or does going into politics make you corrupt?

Did Lou have an epiphany? Did the angel Gabriel, (or Moroni, or Steve) appear to him in the night saying, “Loouuu… you were wrong about illegal immigration. It’s good for America. Repent and confess your sins on Telemundo.”

Or did a political consultant whisper in Lou’s ear, “Lou, baby, the Democrats have already done the leg work. They’ve registered millions of illegal voters. All you gotta do is persuade them your mother was Haitian.”