This cheeseball graphic uncomfortably represents Vermont’s commitment to ethics in our political process. It’s sad, it’s perfunctory, it’s just plain awful.

The title quotation neatly, depressingly, encapsulates our recent history with ethics enforcement. If Our Political Betters were capable of embarrassment, and if they are they hide it very well, the Statehouse would be full of beet-red faces.

The quotation came from Deputy Secretary of State Lauren Hibbert, speaking last month to a House committee that had just acknowledged, in a bill on the cusp of becoming law, that Vermont can’t afford ethical standards in our politics.

But hey, at least the Legislature is consistent. They’ve never had the stomach for any real ethics regime. They just want to make it seem like they care. The result: an ethics commission that’s woefully under-resourced, has no investigative or enforcement powers, and does all its business in secret.

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