Hey Mister, You Wanna Buy a Pencil?

Back in the day, a Chicago cop would signal a motorist that a bit of folding money would take care of the ticket by offering to sell a pencil to the driver. Depending on the infraction (and what the cop thought he could get), the pencil would cost between ten and fifty bucks.

Nowadays, of course, corruption is more genteel. A politician's spouse sets up a charity and the big corporations just line up to shovel cash in through the door. It may all be for a good cause. But can anyone honestly say that if Bobby Jindal owned a small chain of Stop `n Goes in East Baton Rouge Parish that AT&T would donate a quarter-mil to his wife's charity?

Note that one of the largest givers, a refinery company named Alon USA which also contributed a quarter o a million bucks to the charity, got the state to reduce its water discharge testing requirements from twice a week to twice a month.

It may be graft for a good cause. But it is still graft.