“As any prosecutor knows—and Martha Stewart can attest—white-collar types tend to have a morbid fear of jail.” Of course, blue-collar types, and poorer ones still, do not mind prison at all. Why would they? It’s their natural habitat, where they belong. Prison is for people like them.
Under this view, law is needed to control and constrain the ignoble masses (that is, the powerless), who will otherwise spread chaos and disorder. But the noble among us need no constraints. Indeed, the opposite is true: society is better off if the most privileged are free to act without limits, for that will maximize the good they can produce for everyone.
In all the media outrage over the plight of poor Scooter Libby, that was the point all along. And the spirit of Cohen’s objection infuses the crusade for elite immunity in general. The real injustice is to consign the powerful to prison, even if they are guilty of crimes. There is a grave indignity to watching our vaunted political elite being dragged through criminal proceedings and threatened with jail time as though they were common criminals. How disruptive and disrespectful and demeaning it all is.
The overriding allegiance of our permanent Beltway class—including its media—is to the royal court that accords them their status and prestige. That overarching allegiance overrides any supposed partisan, ideological, or other divisions. That is what explains why the neoconservative Lewis Libby and the “liberal pundits” Joe Klein and Richard Cohen are colleagues and comrades in every way that matters. High members of the royal court are, first and foremost, defenders of their swamp. And the most revered and highest-ranking among them shouldn’t ever be punished, let alone imprisoned, for practicing what Cohen admiringly called their “dark art”—whether that comes in the form of illegal eavesdropping, illegal torture, illegal arming and funding of outlaw regimes, or illegal obstruction of justice.
To be sure, this dynamic has prevailed in imperial capitals for centuries. And it is what explains much of official Washington. The crux of political power (the White House) is the royal court, the most powerful leader (the American president) is the monarch, and his highest and most trusted aides are the gate-keepers. Those who are graced with admission and access to the royal court—including “journalists”—are grateful to those who grant them that privilege. They are equally grateful to the political culture on which their special status, privileges, and wealth depend. Naturally, the journalists’ impulse is to protect those who bestowed such favors on them and to promote the culture that sustains them, even as they sentimentally invoke their supposed role as watchdogs over the powerful—a role that they long ago ceased to perform.
Self-Perpetuating Elite Immunity
In a culture of immunity, powerful elites quickly learn that they can act without constraints, that lawbreaking entails no consequences. Even more striking, they come to believe that they actually merit their privileged standing. The notion that the most powerful are too important to be subjected to prosecution becomes not merely a pretext to justify lawlessness to the public, but a genuine conviction on the part of those vested with those prerogatives.
A 2009 study conducted by Joris Lammers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and by Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University in Illinois sought to determine how power and powerlessness affect a person’s moral pliability. The researchers found that those in positions of power not only violate rules much more readily but feel far less contrition about their violations because their power leads them to a consuming, blinding sense of entitlement. As the Economist summarized the study’s findings: “Powerful people who have been caught out often show little sign of contrition. It is not just that they abuse the system; they also seem to feel
Under this view, law is needed to control and constrain the ignoble masses (that is, the powerless), who will otherwise spread chaos and disorder. But the noble among us need no constraints. Indeed, the opposite is true: society is better off if the most privileged are free to act without limits, for that will maximize the good they can produce for everyone.
In all the media outrage over the plight of poor Scooter Libby, that was the point all along. And the spirit of Cohen’s objection infuses the crusade for elite immunity in general. The real injustice is to consign the powerful to prison, even if they are guilty of crimes. There is a grave indignity to watching our vaunted political elite being dragged through criminal proceedings and threatened with jail time as though they were common criminals. How disruptive and disrespectful and demeaning it all is.
The overriding allegiance of our permanent Beltway class—including its media—is to the royal court that accords them their status and prestige. That overarching allegiance overrides any supposed partisan, ideological, or other divisions. That is what explains why the neoconservative Lewis Libby and the “liberal pundits” Joe Klein and Richard Cohen are colleagues and comrades in every way that matters. High members of the royal court are, first and foremost, defenders of their swamp. And the most revered and highest-ranking among them shouldn’t ever be punished, let alone imprisoned, for practicing what Cohen admiringly called their “dark art”—whether that comes in the form of illegal eavesdropping, illegal torture, illegal arming and funding of outlaw regimes, or illegal obstruction of justice.
To be sure, this dynamic has prevailed in imperial capitals for centuries. And it is what explains much of official Washington. The crux of political power (the White House) is the royal court, the most powerful leader (the American president) is the monarch, and his highest and most trusted aides are the gate-keepers. Those who are graced with admission and access to the royal court—including “journalists”—are grateful to those who grant them that privilege. They are equally grateful to the political culture on which their special status, privileges, and wealth depend. Naturally, the journalists’ impulse is to protect those who bestowed such favors on them and to promote the culture that sustains them, even as they sentimentally invoke their supposed role as watchdogs over the powerful—a role that they long ago ceased to perform.
Self-Perpetuating Elite Immunity
In a culture of immunity, powerful elites quickly learn that they can act without constraints, that lawbreaking entails no consequences. Even more striking, they come to believe that they actually merit their privileged standing. The notion that the most powerful are too important to be subjected to prosecution becomes not merely a pretext to justify lawlessness to the public, but a genuine conviction on the part of those vested with those prerogatives.
A 2009 study conducted by Joris Lammers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and by Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University in Illinois sought to determine how power and powerlessness affect a person’s moral pliability. The researchers found that those in positions of power not only violate rules much more readily but feel far less contrition about their violations because their power leads them to a consuming, blinding sense of entitlement. As the Economist summarized the study’s findings: “Powerful people who have been caught out often show little sign of contrition. It is not just that they abuse the system; they also seem to feel
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