From Chicago's City Hall to Springfield, our politicians continually offer their testament, not by words, but by their deeds. They install their children or the idiot offspring of allies into public office. They endorse or enable corrupt colleagues. Their sons and nephews get the city sewer contracts, and other friends get the state casino deals. Others ride the white unicorn and talk reform and get the dream house with the help of the influence peddler who'll soon be waiting for his own presidential pardon.

And many of us look the other way, because after such constant assault, we've become desperate for the comforts of myth.