THE GREATEST THREAT TO SECURITY AND WELL BEING IS . . .

Yeah, this one occurred to me as I watched creepy little Ken Mehlman lie like 30 square yards of Carpeteria orange shag on Meet the Press this morning, desperately trying to protect Karl Rove from the threshers of Justice. Whether its the cops in the Rodney King (State) trial, the bishops of the Catholic Church, the evil swine of the GOP leadership, the rank and file of the NBA, The African Ameican jurors in People v. Simpson, Scott Peterson's parents, Rush Limbaugh's pharmacists, or, hell, pick it. The biggest threat to our society is the reflex action of sticking up for and trying to shield "one of our own" at the exclusion of and to the detriment of all others.

Professor Lawrence Kohlberg had his six stages of Morality, and his writings sadly pointed out that most people don't get past stage three, characterized by the group identity thing. Stick up for your group, and your group will stick up for you. Yeah, at the end of the day, we all want somebody standing in our corner, preferably someone who isn't billing us $250 an hour or tenth thereof for the privilege, shouting and talking and championing our position, especially when we're threatened. Due process and presumption of innocence are great things, too. But when it becomes bloody apparent that someone's sleazily used his contacts gained as a congressman to reap personal profits from defense contractors in the seven figure range, its time for the fellow travelers to politely step back and let the "Gentleman" dig out of the hole he buried himself in. When your up to your neck in scandal, and you run an organization that is divinely ordained, and to whom your ministers are "called by God" you find a way to promote healing. You don't hire the biggest baddest bastards in the valley Bar and kick ass on people who've been buggered multiple times in their formative years already. Your organization already did that/let that happen once. And when your good friend blurs the line between political payback and jeopardizing national security by disclosing covert operatives to punish insubordination, its long past time to pull up the welcome mat, wish the crazed power junkie well, and run don't walk the other way.