The institutions of government are always changing, but it is very often an evolutionary change, where adjustments are made slowly, even imperceptibly to take account of mutating demands. This is part of the democratic system, and has been happening in all democracies. The governmental institutions of the United States also have generally undergone such a gentle metamorphosis. And because of the subtle way in which fresh challenges were met, the faith of most US citizens in these bodies has generally remained undisturbed.
There is, however, one sort of change which can strike at the very roots of governance and even endanger its future existence. And that is a change in people’s confidence and faith in the organs of government. Of course, it takes more than the personal weaknesses of the holders of an office to shake public confidence in an institution.
The presidency so far seems to have held the nation’s confidence, despite a growing undercurrent of concern at George W. Bush’s unbending right-wing political style. Every successful US presidency has come about because the incumbent, whatever his rhetoric, actually occupied and commanded the political middle ground. Thus, from the political depravities of Richard Nixon through to the immoralities of the Clinton years, while many have questioned the man behind the desk in the Oval Office, they have never questioned the institution itself.
Other institutions, once respected pillars of the whole governmental structure, have been less successful at holding onto the respect of US citizens. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been having a tough time since it brought about the massacre and mass suicide of the fundamentalist bigots in Waco. Its failure to track a top Russian spy in its midst for nearly 20 years, even when that man, through a clearly troubled conscience, was almost inviting them to identify him, is a major embarrassment. In the days before Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh was executed, it emerged that the FBI had withheld a mass of evidence from his trial. It is still not clear if that evidence would have had any impact on McVeigh’s execution, which went ahead anyway, but what was more important was that the G-Men, once seen as the backbone of the US Federal justice system, the ultimate good guys, were in fact showing themselves to be incompetent, bumbling buffoons.
Now we learn of another institution, at the heart of the US Defense community, which appears to be staggeringly inept. The Pentagon, the nerve center of America’s armed forces, has admitted that last year alone it was the victim of fraud totaling an incredible $9 billion. Much of this came about through the improper use of credit cards by both civilian and military staff.
It is not the amazingly huge figure that causes concern in America , so much as the fact that there is clearly a large number of people in positions of great trust at the heart of the military establishment, who think it quite proper to abuse their positions of trust to a quite unbelievable degree. Unless an awful lot of heads, both big and small, are seen to be rolling as a result of this scandal, one more government institution will have forfeited critical public trust.
