The fact that a politician can get away with tax evasion, murder and the list goes on is complete horseshit. They never face any real punishment, and if they do the exiting POTUS pardons them. No one wants to admit it, but there is a ruling class in the USA and then the rest of us. The rest of us need to understand that elected officials are public servants, not rock stars or untouchables. They should be held to a higher standard, because they choose that path. Instead we get the bottom of the barrel, sociopaths and con men making decisions that line their pockets and give them more power. All the while the populace argues about non sense and keeps sending the same lying bastards back to DC.
I understand and even go along with your thinking to a point.
I agree that if a political leader is guilty of a serious crime like murder, then he or she should pay for that crime like any other citizen. For lesser crimes, though...I'm not so sure.
To play devil's advocate here, don't you think there's a downside to prosecuting political leaders for things like tax evasion and other relatively minor crimes? Seems to me that nearly every president would end up behind bars because even if the transgressions were minor and relatively common (like lying about getting a blowjob from some slutty intern), the opposition political party would see it only as an opportunity to hurt the other party. And even if just removing one from office were the penalty, that can easily be taken too far.
You actually see this in other countries, btw. Ever heard of Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej? The 73-year old Sundarevej (along with his whole cabinet) were removed from office in 2009 by the Thai Supreme Court for the crime of....receiving $2,300- for appearing on some cooking shows. In Thailand. The same Thailand where prostitution is illegal (wink wink, nudge nudge). Is that some excessive shit or what?
It's easy to make the case that prosecuting your political leaders for anything except the most egregious offenses is not something a politically stable government should be doing.
So, what should be done when our leaders cravenly break the laws that they know they can get away with? I think the answer may be to just publicly call them out on it. If a large percentage of the people are expressing their condemnation over some politician's misdeeds, then, for today's politicians who live and die by polls, that very well might be enough of a penalty by itself. (Maybe not, though; Some politicians, particularly ones in their last legal term of office, might not GAF...)
