Prescient printers?

Gore Vidal, in his book Inventing a Nation decries the growing stain of corruption that is spreading throughout the head of our government. He sees a reflection of the original corruption that drove the colonists to break free of the King George's sagging, prideful, opulent government in today's leadership. He wrote the book before the revelations of Abramoff's, DeLay's and Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's (R) extensive networks of greed and avarice came about.

Gore is also fond of quoting Benjamin Franklin, whom he sees as the wisest of the founding fathers. Franklin took a somewhat dim view of the future of the Republic predicting that corruption would inevitably rot out its foundation and bring it crashing down on top of the people it was meant to serve.

We already know there's rot, it's just a question of how long it will take to cut it out.

- Murphy