Hevesi drives himself into an ethics jam

“What we can’t find is the outrage.”
That is exactly right, where is the outrage? Small blogs can do little to expose government and political corruption, the media has to cover and expose what is going on every where. Why don’t they? Are they bought off? Are they afraid of political retribution?

Join the club and find out what it’s like to get hit from all sides while exposing the rot that is hidden under the rugs…

Hevesi drives himself into an ethics jam – Newsday.com
Last August, an angry state Comptroller Alan Hevesi brandished a thick audit of the William Floyd schools. “There was corruption and mismanagement and huge waste,” he said at a press event as he was gearing up his re-election. “What we can’t find is the outrage.”

When school district officials called his report an unfair political hit, Hevesi sneered: “They’re trying to spin their way out of the consequences.”

Well. Well.

Now that Hevesi has been found – once again – to have improperly used a publicly paid driver as a family chauffeur, I have to ask the same question: Where’s the outrage?

Now that the state’s fiscal watchdog has admitted to possibly stealing at least $82,000 of his driver’s time over more than three years, how does he have the moral authority to criticize other officials?

The second question is easier to answer than the first. Hevesi has lost that authority, which is key to doing his job. His willingness to act above the rules – and the law, if you don’t believe he ever intended to pay the money back until caught – has to make you wonder about the ethics he brings to managing tens of billions of dollars in pension funds.

I say this with as much sadness as anger. And maybe I’m just an editorial writer scorned: I don’t think anybody in the media has opined more favorably about his work.

But Hevesi has damaged more than his own credibility, subjecting almost anything he says now to extreme skepticism. He managed to raise the level of cynicism about Albany and all officials when it seems it couldn’t have gone higher.

After initially standing up for Hevesi, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer and others have retreated to a chilly distance. But no major Democrat has called for Hevesi to resign or suspend his campaign until all investigations – including a criminal one by the Albany County district attorney – are completed.

As Republican gubernatorial candidate John Faso has asked, “Can you imagine if this was a Wall Street executive what Eliot Spitzer would be saying?”

Can you imagine if this were a pilfering school official what Hevesi would be saying: “Where’s the outrage?”