Many, many years ago, when I was a young pup of a reporter on a small rural paper in the foothills of the Appalachians in East Tennessee, one of my very first assignments was to attend a court hearing on a murder case, then meet afterwards with one of the most senior law enforcement officers in the county, who would be giving testimony in the case. This officer frequently provided the paper with photographs of the latest drug raid or big arrest his force had made.

I went to the hearing, then met the officer. He was, literally, a towering figure, topping six-foot-five, and sporting a thin Errol Flynn moustache, perhaps to offset his thinning hair. He was a powerful, popular figure, and one of the top leaders in a statewide law enforcement association; indeed, he spent several weeks a year training his colleagues in the latest modern methods of crime-fighting and professional law enforcement management.

I'd never met the man, but when I introduced myself as the reporter from the Herald, he gave me a big smile, took my hand with a crushing grip, and sat me down on a bench in the old, antebellum courtroom. He pulled out a roll of 35mm film in its plastic canister and handed it to me. As he handed it over, he clamped his massive hand down hard on my thigh and gripped it tight. "Here's your pictures," he said in a low voice. "If you do right by me, we'll get along just fine. But if you try to screw me, you're fucked."

Then he let go, stood up, and went off, smiling and back-slapping his way through the citizens milling in the hallway. Well, he got good coverage during the time that I was at the paper. He was very cooperative with the press; I went on several drug raids with his forces as they turned houses inside out -- the officers were particularly tickled when they found sex Polaroids the suspects had taken of themselves; although these were not germane to the charges at hand, they were examined far more closely than the actual evidence. I even went on what must surely have been one of the last moonshine raids in the Tennessee hills, after a long trek deep into the backwoods, where some nostalgic old-timer had set up a still -- even though the county, which was still nominally "dry," was ringed with numerous package liquor stores; you were never more than ten minutes' drive from all the hard liquor you could want.

But the "press" -- such as we were -- never had the time, or the resources, or the publishers' blessing to pursue the more troubling rumors that floated around the law enforcement star and several other bigwigs in the area. These chiefly involved cooperation between law enforcement, top financial entrepreneurs and criminal organizations to facilitate the transport of illegal drugs into the area, chiefly through private airstrips set up in far corners on palatial estates.

This was, oddly enough, the same basic set-up that I encountered, or heard credible tales of, in every American newspaper where I worked -- in East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee and down in Mississippi. In every case, there was prima facie evidence (and sometimes more than that) of a local worthy -- banker, music star, famous evangelical -- providing the facilities for drug-running while the law looked the other way. And in every case, there was a lack of resources -- and institutional will -- to pursue the allegations further. In the one instance where there was an effort to follow one of these trails, a top editor and I were set to drive to New Orleans, where a televangelist's planes were allegedly being used to fly in dope from Central America. But the night before we were to leave, I got a call at home from the editor: "Our sources tell us we'd better not meet with [the man who would corroborate the allegations.]" Why not, I asked. "They say we'll never make it out of New Orleans alive." So we didn't go.

I was reminded of all this ancient personal history by the recent story in the New York Times about the latest round of corruption arrests in New Jersey. Mayors, councilmen, city, county and state officials, rabbis -- all are alleged to be operating a crime network ranging from international money-laundering to good, old-fashioned cash in an envelope (or even a cereal box) in exchange for government favors. This was not the case of a "few bad eggs," but a veritable platoon of community leaders.

It was, in other words, another brief glimpse behind the curtain of how the world really works a good deal of time, at every level. There is always some powerful person somewhere clamping their hands down on somebody's thigh and muttering, "Play ball, and it's jake; screw me and you're fucked." Every now and then, someone will make a play too large for the pull they can muster to cover themselves; or maybe someone with bigger pull wants to muscle in on their patch, and brings the heat -- or, occasionally, a straight-up unit or prosecutor will get the goods and somehow run the gauntlet of protective barriers that hedge in the powerful.

But the fact is, many, many, many people in power whom we are incessantly told -- even ordered -- to respect and obey are dirty. They lie, they cheat, they steal, they commit or countenance heinous crimes. Sometimes the corruption comes in the form of a wad of cash passed under the table at a diner; sometimes it comes in the form of "bundled contributions" to a national campaign or arcane legal entity designed to receive, process -- and launder -- cash for politicians dripping with piety; or, even more often, in the form of the golden revolving door between government service and corporate sinecures. Sometimes the crime is looking the other way when a plane comes in loaded with dope; sometimes the crime is sending the planes in loaded with bombs.

A few years after I left the Appalachian foothills, my old thigh-clamping pal was convicted on felony gambling charges (as always, its the venial sins of the flesh that bring you down, not the pay-offs, strong-arming, commission of war crimes, etc.). But today he is once again a prominent, popular politician in the area. The evangelist whose drug-laden planes were allegedly landing in Louisiana is still a prominent, popular evangelist, despite a couple of highly publicized falls from grace with sultry jezebels. And the music star whose private airstrip on his vast rural manor was allegedly used to ferry dope is still a music star, noted now for his fierce Christian piety and rock-ribbed patriotism.

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ian August said:

	... so chris, how do we fight this, how do i fight this, where are all the guys trying to bring these crooks down, in law, in reporting, are they scattered?
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July 24, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	... I love this stuff. Thanks Chris. This is the stuff that more people need to read and hear, to help them quit idolizing politicians and quit treating them like demigods, or divine agents of change, or emissaries of hope.
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July 24, 2009
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Marcus said:

... Chris, any chance you could name names? Maybe it is meant to be apparent, but country stars, evangelists, and Tennessee politicians are not very familiar to me. No offense meant to Tennessee. Ian, what if these people were brought down? Wouldn't their replacements be just as inclined to corruption? Will voters/consumers become more capable of choosing politicians, music idols, and evangelists, or billionaires to the extent they are chosen, that are less corrupt? I don't see why that would happen, and more so, I think the power itself will corrupt anyone, or nearly anyone, who assumes the position. And the people who are not corruptible, if they exist, are probably not inclined to pursue power. So I think the goal, and I know all of these goals are elusive, should be to lessen the power that any individual can have over other people and resources. Sean, I hate to be a naysayer, but do you think the people such as you describe would really wake up after new revelations, when all of the immense evidence of history has not stirred them from their daydreams yet? Again, I don't mean to be negative, I'm all in favor of Chris's column and us readers spreading this information. But I have found that presenting such ideas, even to seemingly coherent people, will often result in you being called a cocksucker, dumbass, naive, insane, etc. They realize their positions (Obamalove etc.) are indefensible by reason and fact, so they descend into a frothing pile of gibberish, and leave the conversation feeling more righteous and Obamaniacal (or whatever their perversion may be) than ever. I still try, and once in a while there is a receptive person, but if you have not tried, I warn you it's a discouraging business. I think that's why Chris usually has a tone of such bitterness, it's not the continuing atrocities, which are just sad, but the unwillingness for so many to recognize what is happening.

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July 24, 2009
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slava said:

	... Marcus, try a Google search with a few key terms, you have enough clues to find the names yourself Chris, thanks as always for your articles. For a non-English speaker, they are a true pleasure to read. There's always something to learn from them, from a language point of view too.
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July 24, 2009
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yankee 30 said:

	... ...and the missing 8 billion under Bremer's tenure in Baghdad. ...and the 50 billion that Madoff disappeared ("all by himself"). ...and the 2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld reminded us was unaccounted for at the Pentagon. ...and the numerous trillions that the Federal Reserve refuses to account for. It stinks real bad. Why? 'Cause it's rotten to the core.
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July 24, 2009
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Soj said:

comment I'm going to write as succinctly as I can because I've been a big fan of CF for a while now (months?) and this is an important issue. Quite simply there are SEVERAL issues involved here. 1) Prosecution - even imagine a completely "clean" and straight up DA and prosecutor's office, etc., the vast majority of crimes are PLED out. That is to say, the defendant pleads guilty (usually to a lesser charge) or charges are dropped and there is no trial. I'm sure most people know this. But why does it matter? Because the DA's office is notoriously gun shy about taking cases to court, esp BIG cases unless they're virtually guaranteed they will win aka known as a "slam dunk" by certain ex-CIA chiefs So let's say you've got SOME proof that Local Celebrity X is committing some crime, say drug running. It's not enough to have SOME evidence, you've got to have enough to a SLAM DUNK case and that's much, much harder to do. Your average non-celebrity defendant will plead out very quickly because trials are long, expensive and very risky - if you lose a trial you often spend 3-4x more time in jail. With Local Celebrity X however, a trial however is GREAT (for a whole host of reasons) and this makes the DA's office even MORE timid about anything less than a "slam dunk". 2) Politics - Quite simply, the prosecutor is usually almost ELECTED. Therefore if the DA goes after a popular figure (Local Celebrity X) it might hurt the DA's chances of re-election. Same goes with the law enforcement side of things. Usually sheriffs are elected OR mayors who appointed chiefs of police but SOMEONE high up in the law enforcement arena is elected. Again, going after LCX is going to be mighty risky if LCX is popular. This again heightens the risk of even INVESTIGATING a case against LCX because LCX can usually bring a hell of a lot of political heat even BEFORE an arrest is made. 3) Marion Barry Effect - Quite simply put, what the public at large will tolerate from an "ordinary" person and what the public will tolerate of a "celebrity" are two totally different things. LCXs can go hog wild and break all kinds of laws and even have "slam dunk" cases against them (including videotape shown on the local news) and a good percentage of the population will STILL defend LCX no matter what. This gives LCXs more political power to stop investigations and increases the temerity of the local DA/law enforcement to begin anything. 4) Punishment for snitches - Quite simply put, those who dare to come forward, say anything and/or provide evidence are often punished in some way, directly or indirectly by the LCX. Chris' excellent example was of a corrupt sheriff who would "fuck" him if he "screwed" with the sheriff in question. The people who often know the most "dirt" are often those DOING it or participating in it, often the employees or whatnot of the corrupt LCX. Even should the LCX get prosecuted, there's often community-based shame given to those who blew the whistle and they may find it very difficult to continue to live or work in that community simply because people don't trust "snitches", even when it was a net plus for the community. Imagine for example if Chris' corrupt sheriff had a receptionist in his office who gathered critical data of the sheriff's misconduct and this evidence was used in the trial. Would the next sheriff want to keep this same person as their receptionist? Hell no. None of what I just wrote addresses the root causes of CORRUPTION, only some of the factors which inhibit "straight" folks from investigating and prosecuting crimes involving LCXs. I am sad to say I know this from first-hand experience and we all know it from the national case involving Scooter Libby. Pax BTW - just as a piece of trivia, usually the only local person with jurisdiction to arrest a sheriff is the coroner.

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July 24, 2009
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Sean O'Neil said:

	... Marcus, I don't know you or your friends so I don't know your frame of reference, but I'll say that I've had friends change their views on political issues after talking to me. Whether that's to do with how I talk to them versus how you talk to people, I don't know. I'm not sure what your point is.
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July 24, 2009
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pineywoodslim said:

As one Tennessean to another I'm a Memphis native. Sorry to read you didn't make it out of middle and east Tennessee to the western side of the state with its vaunted and legendary political corruption which extends to the Memphis suburban Mississippi casinos. At the same time, I also get the unsettling feeling that the rest of the state is no less corrupt--at all--but that the focus is on Memphis to some extent because it is the state's black majority metro.

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July 25, 2009
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