Corruption

If power corrupts, weakness in the seat of power, with its constant necessity of deals and bribes and compromising arrangements, corrupts even more.

Historian Barbara Tuchman

The quotation is most likely from March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, her Vietnam book. In a conversation today on Daily Kos, a commenter offered it to explain the behavior of Congressional Democrats who once again apparently intend to give Bush funding for the Iraq war with no strings or conditions. Seems very descriptive of the current leadership of the Dem party. Could Democrats behave otherwise? Possibly, if we make them.