Another Snowe Job in the Making?

Morality is a self-driven virtue; it cannot be pushed by legislation. But to the degree that trustworthiness and other favorable character traits should be standard equipment for ascendancy to positions of public trust, we, the people, should be able to demand the removal of those who have proven themselves morally less equipped, even if we cannot legally punish them.

This may be only a goal -- and a lofty one, given that we are so steeped in corruption on every level of our political system that we would hardly know where to begin if we wanted to turn things around. This is why we have not yet gotten our moral bearing despite much anticipation borne of a great deal of promise inherent in the fielding of a team as gifted -- at least on paper -- as the personnel of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's administration.

And so the patience of the rest of the world must be wearing thin as they watch us waddle in ignorance, deceit, and sheer incompetence even as we try to victimize one another through lies and theft and other vices that have stymied our progress since the birth of this nation.

Needless to say that we could easily have done without some of the dirt that surfaced in the tarring contests among the three branches of our government. Maybe we are approaching the absolute bottom of our descent into total chaos, and the current rounds of recrimination are a sign of a breakdown of discipline in some of the vicious criminal syndicates and other vicious alliances that have stalled progress thus far.

For instance, showing Cabinet Minister Willis Knuckles with his pants down (apparently a long way from his desk at the Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs) may be entertaining for those who made the point of recording it and putting it on public display. And that's because Knuckles too got an honorable mention in dirty politics. But sex won't hurt us (Does it ever hurt?) as much as bribery and theft -- vices of which the once embattled House Speaker Edwin Snowe has already accused the Sirleaf government and some members of the honorable House of Representatives.

Snowe claimed that President Sirleaf was behind the drive to remove him as Speaker. No big deal. So Snowe had to spend anew to keep the job that many believe he won mostly by buying the votes of his colleagues. Well, buying votes -- bad as it may sound -- is only a garden-variety offense in Liberian politics.

However, what got the attention of the international community -- especially the United States -- is the plausible claim of Mr. Snowe and others that there is documentary evidence of the involvement of the Executive branch of the government in buying anti-Snowe votes in the Liberian Congress through bribery.

The bribery charge should be taken seriously by both the accused and the accusers because seeking a bribe is illegal; offering a bribe is illegal; and accepting a bribe is illegal. We may laugh all we want, but no credible international groups are going to help us if there is any chance that their efforts may be lost through some of the corrupt practices already alleged. Our current benefactors may not wait around much longer either, because there are other trouble spots around the world that could use some of the help we in Liberia are beginning to take for granted.

In passing judgment in the bribery case -- if it should ever come to that -- Liberia 's sad history may once again come into focus. In poor Liberia , rich perpetrators of depraved acts often have a battery of lawyers through whom to split hairs about every speck of right and privilege that could conceivably be theirs if we dare hold them accountable for their reprehensible acts.

Most of the laws we have on the books in this regard are meant to protect the innocent. If we fail, however, those who were once abused may grow up as the next class of predators upon the vulnerable members of our population. And the cycle will continue.

This is why even in politics, careful recruitment should provide some insurance against the inclusion of shady characters, especially in the revamping of a broken system like ours. But in any successful political campaign that makes possible the opportunity to lead a nation, it is often the very shadiness of some characters that qualifies those same characters as allies. Therefore, and soon after victory, the political dirty dozens will show up to stake claims in the new administration with their bags of dirty tricks in tow.

Of course careful recruitment reduces risks rather than totally eliminates them. For instance, even if President Sirleaf hadn't hired an eminently qualified Harry Greaves to an otherwise low-key position from which he manages to generate controversies, we couldn't say with certainty that there wouldn't have been the kinds of squabbles that once paralyzed this administration. And this is because President Sirleaf was already self-sufficient in making waves before she hired some of the extras. Therefore getting more help of the notorious sort from, let's say, Willis Knuckles proved to be an overkill.

In one of the bad publicity spills after the Knuckles action photo, however, it appears that Harry Greaves was being deliberately dragged into something for which we had no proof of his conscious involvement. If all we can say is that (as reported in the New Democrat and other newspapers) Greaves' lost laptop was broadcasting its otherwise private contents on the Worldwide Web, then we cannot delve into the contents of his personal computer without first wondering how the machine got away from him. That, to me, has more incriminating weight than creating and hoarding licentious materials for personal viewing -- something that, as best I can tell, Greaves has not even been accused of.

However, since we cannot reach a solid conclusion on mere supposition, I am supposing only that the laptop that was stolen from Greaves was personal equipment. But if Greaves (and we) had to worry about work-related documents on the lost PC that could be compromising, then we must wonder also how porn materials managed to reside on the same computer as sensitive documents of national importance. Porn is at least a probable content of Mr. Greaves' laptop because the leaks after the first Snowe storm brought concerns about pornography and sensitive documents. And everything got mixed up in the flood and mudslides that resulted from the melting Snowe.

The same case can even be made for the star of the apparently vile photo that made its rounds on the Internet -- Willis Knuckles. We can later make the short hop from Knuckles' personal moral lapses to the issue of rape and child molestation that Liberian men can't seem to take seriously, and press the amateur porn star to show proof that his partners in the sex scenes were at least old enough to be considered consenting adults.

Mr. Knuckles, however, wanted us to worry first about why consensual acts, even if they are sexual, got plastered on the front pages of newspapers just because the actors held high government positions. That, of course, would be a good question -- for private citizen Knuckles and his lawyers to ponder.

I am saying all this not being certain that I wouldn't buy a ticket to see Harry Greaves being pilloried in the public square. And this is because Greaves himself relishes watching people squirm in the pain and embarrassment that he often facilitates. That is why he had been baiting Edwin Snowe publicly since he succeeded the man as Managing Director of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company.

But Greaves' genius for getting at his perceived enemies has also marred this administration in so many needless controversies to the extent that the effect of the brainy ensemble of professionals President Sirleaf lured home from abroad is yet to be felt measurably.

Of course many of us are disappointed but not completely surprised that the efforts of the President's A Team are being diluted by controversies. We saw some of these crippling and duplicitous acts during the presidential campaign. And although we and the perpetrators knew that the dirty materials they were circulating about political opponents were not authentic, the effect on simpler minds was calculated to yield some political advantage -- and did -- notwithstanding their falsehood.

And now that the masterminds of dirty political campaign have turned on one another, the rest of us can take comfort in Schadenfreude. Yep. That's a German word which means getting a kick out of someone else's misfortune. Greaves has been amusing himself with other people's misery for a while now. So why can't we too have some fun at his expense?

But whereas Schadenfreude occurs when someone is amused by another's misfortune without having a hand in creating it, Greaves has probably met poetic justice and may therefore prove worse than useless for the Sirleaf administration because he delights in the destruction of others.

I know that Knuckles has given generous credit to a Snowe of another shade (White, as in Mardea White Snowe, wife of Sir Edwin) for exposing all the follies ranging from group sex to lugging a dirty laptop around. But what should we expect? Even the last Snowe storm came with sufficient warning; therefore the resulting floods and mudslides should not have come as a surprise.

We all were eagerly anticipating the next episode in the saga when suddenly it appeared that we had seen the last Snowe storm, because it appeared that our Congress had privately reconciled on the bribery question. But happily, we are back on track, otherwise it would have been biggest snow job since President Charles King won the Liberian presidency with more votes than the roster of registered voters in Liberia -- a feat for which this country picked up another disreputable record. This time in the Guinness Book of World Records for election results that defied logic.

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Contact Tarty Teh at : e-Mail: TartyTeh@aol.com / Phone and text: (231) 05-653-56