I’d like to say a good word for government corruption, given the pasting that it’s taken this week. So here it is.

Corruption is so comfortable and reassuring, compared to most political news of recent months and especially last week’s scare over inevitable future terror attacks. You can practically feel the pundits and politicians slide into a familiar zone.

Corruption has been around forever. Nobody likes it, but nobody gets blown up by it, at least not in a direct way, and best of all no one is ever surprised by it. Some cabinet ministers go, others step in, the opposition says it amounts to nothing at all, and columnists write about ethics yet again . . .

The fact that the Liberal purge was symbolic and functional rather than substantive is shown by the fact that the guy they tossed overboard was Art Eggleton. I sympathise with him for the first time ever. His offence was giving a piddling contract to an ex bed-mate as revealed a year ago in Frank magazine.

This doesn’t even rank with taking a holiday at a condo in return for a contract. He gave the favour for what he had long ago received, in gratitude (or guilt, who knows the dynamics of these things unless you’re there). He has never been the model of a greedy politician on the take; he’s more your classic tool. (No double-entendre intended. His stud image came late, one of the perks of power.)

Twenty years ago, some Toronto power-brokers needed a candidate to displace John Sewell as mayor. Since anyone would do, they took Art. When he went to Ottawa, straight into cabinet, he appeared content to say anything he was told, and to look like a fool when the need arose, as it did during various uproars in his time at Defence.

He seemed to be in it for the deference and the limo. He said this week that his ouster for the little contract with the ex made a mountain out of a molehill. Well, he should know. His whole career in politics has been making a mountain out of a molehill.

What he ought to have been ejected for was the ineptitude shown when his own generals dumped all over him publicly during hearings on three Afghan prisoners handed over to the U.S. by Canadian troops. They said their minister couldn’t grasp it for the longest time, until finally the penny dropped. It was a stunning show of insolence, unique I would bet (any takers?), even when you include the many doofuses who have held cabinet posts, and continue to.

Everyone knows the underlings express contempt in private, but this was out front — with no reaction at all from the scornee. Eyeballs must have rolled in the cabinet room that day. Yet when the time came, what the government wanted to show concern over was not cosmic incompetence but corruption. That’s worth a dissertation.

Corruption is an odd issue at best. This is partly because no one expects it to go away with a change of personnel or government. The most you can do is throw them out when it happens, and encourage your society’s satirical talents to keep grinding. But it’s also because corruption’s complementary corrective, honesty, is a negative virtue, at least in politics. That you are honest tells the citizens nothing about what you will actually do on their behalf.

So let us say, for instance, that Stephen Harper is as honest as Abe Lincoln. You still must deal with him saying this week that we have to make the Americans happier with our sorry Canadian selves. Surely that means destroying public health care in Canada, since all the powerful forces in the U.S. can’t stand it and the rebuke it poses to their system. A related distraction: This week, I attended a panel during the academic meetings being held in Toronto. It was mainly for grad students in history, to hear about job opportunities in their field beyond the universities, in the proliferating history TV channels, or government or even the private sector.

I have long been bugged and befuddled by our society’s apparent obsession with history — theme parks, book clubs, recreations etc. — while at the same time appearing apathetic and ignorant toward it. I think September 11 has clarified some of this. What’s attractive to many about history is that it takes you away from the hideous, scary, recalcitrant present.

You turn to the past not to learn from it for the sake of the future, but to evade the present. It’s a place to retreat to and relax in, not the giant rolling snowball already suffocating you before you even notice it’s upon you — as others view history. A place, in fact, and not part of time at all. Theme parks express it perfectly. Yesterday marked the end of the cleanup at the World Trade Center. “At Ground Zero,” read a headline, “the focus shifts to remembrance.” Exactly. It is already part of history.

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Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.