Charlie Rangel’s defense against the ethics charges against him is, in part this: I’m not the only one, so it’s unfair to punish me.” From the Washington Post:

“He was not the only lawmaker to solicit donations in this manner, his lawyers argue, saying that peers who did the same thing were not punished. With a trial of Rangel by the House ethics committee possible by mid-September, his legal team reached across the Capitol to point a finger at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who helped raise money for a center named for him at the University of Louisville. Rangel’s team cited similarities with the recently deceased Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and with former Republican senators Trent Lott (Miss.) and Jesse Helms (N.C.).”

OK, a question: what’s the matter with that argument?

Simply this: you did it, Charlie, and thus you deserve the appropriate condemnation and punishment. Your “defense” would mean that the more corrupt members of Congress we have, the more unfair it is to hold any of them accountable. That is self-serving for a corrupt public servant like yourself, but self-destructive for a government. I’m quite sure that there are some really clever and corrupt colleagues of yours who have done a better job covering their tracks. The fact that they are getting away with what you may be punished for doesn’t make your punishment less just; it makes the fact that they aren’t being punished too an additional wrong.

Don’t be too hard on Charlie and his lawyers for this tack, however, for it is certainly a popular one. I am considering naming it, nor after Rangel, but ESPN sports commentator Buster Olney, who recently answered an interviewer’s question about voting baseball’s steroid-using stars into the Hall of Fame with this:

“I have voted for Mark McGwire each year he has been on the ballot, and will vote for him and for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez and the other best players of the era. Anybody who loves the game hates the fact that steroids became so pervasive in the sport, but for a 20-year period, I think most of the elite players were using performance-enhancing drugs, and within the context of that time — when baseball wasn’t doing anything to stop the growth of drug use — this was what the sport was. And we don’t know exactly who did what. There are a lot of superstar players who were broadly suspected within the sport of having used steroids, but they avoided the crossfire; the only difference between those guys and McGwire was that McGwire had Jose Canseco as a teammate. And here’s the other thing — we don’t know exactly who did what, and when they did it. So I think in order to have a consistent standard when considering the steroid-era players, you either have to vote for no one at all, or set aside the steroid issue and just vote for the best players of the era.”

And smart people who should see the fallacy in this applaud.

A true “consistent standard” would be refusing to admit players to the Hall of Fame that have undeniably failed to meet the Hall’s character criteria, which is:

“Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”

Does using banned  and illegal drugs to artificially enhance performance and surpass the legitimate achievements of past baseball greats not show a deficit in integrity, sportsmanship or character? Does it not make even playing ability impossible to measure? If so, then why would anyone vote for players shown to engage in such disqualifying conduct?

Oh—because other players have done the same things without being caught, and will escape just accountability. Good point.

It’s a terrible point—illogical and unethical. (The other rationalization Olney slips in—“…when baseball wasn’t doing anything to stop the growth of drug use” is also aggravating, as if lax enforcement of rules excuses breaking them.) Admit all cheating players because you can’t keep all of them out. We can’t catch all the tax cheats, so let’s not enforce the tax laws. We can’t uncover every employee who lied on his or her resume, so let’s just ignore it when we find out that a high official’s degree is a fabrication.We know some college students cheat on exams without getting caught, and that some of them successfully plagiarize term papers too.

Hey, Buster—lots of journalists fake stories, so I guess it was wrong for the New York Times to fire Jason Blair, right? Heck, let’s put him in the Journalism Hall of Fame. I bet there are some other dishonest reporters who slipped through.

Olney’s choice is a false one, too. I would have all future Hall of Fame inductees sign a notarized affidavit as a condition of their enshrinement, stating that they used no performing enhancing drugs during their career and promising to withdraw from the Hall if evidence surfaced showing that they did. What is important—what is crucial—is that neither baseball’s Hall of Fame, nor the U.S. Congress, nor American society effectively define corruption, dishonesty or other significant unethical conduct as acceptable because it is widespread and difficult to detect in all cases.

Charlie Rangel’s defense and Buster Olney’s rationalization would make us all accept corruption because we cannot stop it, and would therefore corrupt us all.