It’s an old story of sanctimony and thievery. We Americans never seem to learn our lesson that the worst crooks are the moralists among us. Like I said before….

Beware of Those Who Are Holier Than Thou,
For Often They Are Fleecers of Their Own Flock

I was referring to Adelphia Censor-in-Thief John J. Rigas who had covered up the boobs on my show even as he covered up the books in his accounting office. But the verse seems to fit shyster lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his Biblically corrupt buddy Tom DeLay like that telltale glove.

Jack and Tom are both powerful Men of Religion. And not just any religion, none of that Native American stuff like the tribes Jack bilked out of millions. We’re talking Real Men’s Real American Religion – The-One-and-Only-Accept-No-Substitutes Judeo-Christian Brand – Jack Abramoff being an orthodox Jew and Tom DeLay a committed Christian. Both wear their religions on their sleeves, as badges of honor, piety and trustworthiness: the quintessential Family Values Men.

And now, just like the devoutly Christian Rigas Family before them, Jack and Tom are showing us what “family values” are really all about. Take one of Abramoff’s chief money-laundering shells, called, fittingly, the U.S. Family Network. Naturally, it vociferously supported “family values” and “moral fitness,” railing against pornography and gambling even as it funneled multiple millions of stolen greenbacks, much of it from gambling casinos, into the pockets of Jack and Tom and, of course, their families. For more details on this breathtakingly hypocritical scam, check out Truthdig’s Robert Scheer.

See, that’s what Abramoff, Delay and Bush Family Values are all about: Valuing the Abramoff Family, the DeLay Family and the Bush Family, as well as a very few other associated families and cronies, and to Hell with the rest of the country..

“Family Values” has stolen a million times more cash and destroyed many more lives than the pornography and other *vices* to which it pretends to be superior. When will we Americans learn to take Ethical Hedonism over Unethical Puritanism? Or are we some kind of political masochists? Do we get a charge out of being ripped off by religious charlatans? Do we enjoy being jerked off by prudes?

“Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.” .Karl Kraus (1874-1936)

So much for morality. I’m going to bed to have some good clean sex.