A Letter From John ...
You've caught me out, whoring with the power mongers. Frankly, they are all that you say. I should know, because they did it to me first.
They are incompetent governors, but willing to wreck constitutional government in order to rule. There are no values they will not betray; there is no lie they will not tell. They have squandered the national treasury, both of wealth and of good will. They may try to encode a narrow morality in constitutional law. You've seen it all and you've seen it well.
What can I say? My life is in the political arena and, there, they showed me where the power lay four years ago. I could retire from it altogether and live a comfortable life. My hope is to remain in it, to continue to be there as a factor with whom they must conjure. Political life is not for the squeamish. Principled politicians rarely survive. I've compromised myself to remain in the arena. You've chosen well not to be there.