Washington Post's Poll on the Political Scandals of the Year Mixes Sex Scandals and Real Scandals

Over at The Washington Post blog, the obviously wildly unscientific "idea marketplace" poll asks people to vote on the biggest political scandal of the year. The current options (with opportunity to suggest your own) are an odd mix of the sexy and the very serious.

There's plenty of instinctual schadenfreude that should come with every political scandal, no matter how small. And there are added bonuses for every social con who rails against the gays just a little too much, but shouldn't the former Reps. Anthony Weiner, Chris Lee, and David Wu, the former Sen. David Ensign, the former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the former GOP frontrunner Herman Cain (man, that takes me back) and their various sex scandals still be considered fundamentally less notable than the $500 million (at least) boondoggle known as Solyndra, and the Gunwalker/Fast and Furious scandal?

Two of these things are not like the other six. I'm all for constantly reminding folks that politics is terrible, scandalous, and ignoble even without the presence of Donald Trump. I just think there should be separate categories for deservedly fallen politicians and frustratingly under-reported scandals which prove once again the incompetence of the government when it tries to play venture capitalist or fix the cartel problem it helped create in the first place.

Commenters, any nominations for scandals of the year? (The libertarian answer that all of government is a scandal is absolutely acceptable.)

Reason (mostly Tim Cavanaugh) on Solyndra. Reason on fast and furious.

Comments

[meep meep]

Quick correct: Solyndra is 500 million and counting, not billion

[Lucy Steigerwald]

Wow, hugely important/I knew that. Fixed.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

Having just completed my studies in Finance, I was amazed how many of my fellow classmates could not differentiate between millions and billions. I was always the "group leader" for projects, because sure as shit, they would confuse millions and billions. And Ron Paul wants to disband the Dept. of Education? Why? It's doing a really good job teaching our children basic counting math.

[Paul]

Yes, but the Solyndra-esque will surely reach well, well into the 10 figures.

[Episiarch]

Commenters, any nominations for scandals of the year?

The fact that Terra Nova was put on the air and even hyped as if it wasn't atrocious? That Brannon Braga still gets work?

[Paul]

I don't keep up on the TV Zeitgeist these days, so I had to look it up:

The show begins in the year 2149, a time when all life on planet Earth is threatened with extinction due to dwindling worldwide air quality and overpopulation

Yawn.

[Episiarch]

Worse than yawn. Way worse.

[BigT]

Thinly veiled leftist, alarmist, Malthusean, apocalyptic propaganda. What did you expect?

[Mensan]

You forgot Syfy quality CGI dinosaurs.

[hubba do]

And you forgot people who survive in a world of gigantic predators without killing any of them.

[hubba do]

Don't forget the gratuitous swipe at evil corporations run by evil men who blackmail valiant single black mothers into helping them implement their devious plan to plunder the natural resources of Earth's past.

Oh hell, I've obviously watched too many episodes. What is wrong with me?

[Kallipygian Kristen]

This is the shite that replaced the great Tim Roth in Lie to Me

[Fist of Etiquette]

I thought we all agreed on a moratorium on Weiner pictures. I thought we agreed.

[Lucy Steigerwald]

I know it hurts. I know.

[Episiarch]

Also, Lucy, I note that your posts are never put at the top when you post them, unlike all the other editors. Do the senior editors not allow someone of as lowly a status as an associate editor to post above them? Are you the low editor on the posting pole?

[Lucy Steigerwald]

Short answer, yes I am. But my posts are sometimes. But when I start one and notice other folks have written more in depth things I tend to just leave mine where it would have been had I not been doing five things at once.

Other short answer, I over-think blogging.

[Clich? Bandit]

You are still my favorite...Baylen, if he were a regular, would give you a good run though.

[Eduard van Haalen]

The Koch brothers throwing around cash for right-wing reactionary propaganda and obviously not giving Rearson enough (see fundraising appeals). I mean, shouldn't you be drowning in gold coins by now? Or at least in scrip redeemable at the local medical marijuana dealer?

[Eduard van Haalen]

If they don't want to give a lot of money to Reason, could I get the extra? I won't waste too much of it, and I'll keep posting insightful comments on this blog. I mean, I need to be incentivized.

[Poet Laureate sloopyinca]

You'd probably just regift it to the Davis, CA branch of the Policeman's Benevolent Assosiation.

[Eduard van Haalen]

I'd be too busy shopping for the right fragrance - and the right seasoning for the Christmas turkey.

[Matt M]

*looks at picture* When Putin does that, it's cool.

[Kallipygian Kristen]

I think Awful Plastic Surgery would say he's got a good case of pectoral implant rippling going on.

[BigT]

Breast implants? Really?

I've lived too long.

[Clich? Bandit]

I used your word today...appropriately and to great effect.

[stuartl]

How about the Justice Department announcing an investigation of Standard and Poor's immediately after S&P downgraded the US credit rating? For some reason they couldn't delay the announcement a month. Good old Chicago bare-knuckle politics at its finest.

Any other corporations that aren't going to toe the line?

[FIFY]

Good old Chicago bare-knuckle Gangster politics in its finest most brazen form.

[Rrabbit]

The scandal of the year is that once again the national debt can has been kicked forward.

[nah-nah]

Herman Cain ... sex scandals

Still no proof. Only accusations. By a serial accuser.

[Tulpa]

For something to be a scandal it has to have been unexpected, right? Obama dumping taxpayer money on campaign donors doesn't fit that bill.

[NickM]

Fast and Furious. Solyndra is a basic corruption scandal - government officials gave your money to their friends and donors. It's just bigger than most.

Fast and Furious is at its BEST crackhead-level thinking - let's let the Mexican drug cartels get guns from the U.S. and then find where they use the guns in crimes and leave them behind (there are several logical steps completely missing from the plan for it to be anything useful). It makes the underpants gnomes from South Park look like a business school case study.

At its worst, it's an attempt to destabilize a generally friendly neighboring country on behalf of some of the most brutal thugs in the world while heaping blame on Americans and trying to take away their constitutional rights.

This scandal has more legs than a centipede. They've already unsuccesfully blown through 2 fall guys (the ATF head and the US Atty for AZ) and it keeps growing.

[James Ard]

The scandal that may hurt the most was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nixing the Yucca Mountain waste repository. Too bad no media, including Reason, investigated the crime.