A Tragedy

Whatever your politics, it's hard to see the arrest of former Bush domestic policy aide Claude Allen as anything but a tragedy. While I think that someone of his background who takes up the "conservative"cause has forgotten where he came from--the man came to Washington as an aide to Jesse Helms, for heaven's sake--there should be no satisfaction in Allen's transformation from high-ranking Presidential aide to accused felon.

If Allen did what he's accused of (a scheme to falsely claim refunds from stores in the DC metropolitan area), the question is why? A number of psychological explanations come to mind, but the answer might be simpler: greed, or to put it in a more genteel fashion, financial pressure. In a report recounting how Allen observed the State of Union as the First Lady's guest even after an arrest on January 2nd (which he insisted was due to a credit care mixup), AP notes that he and his wife recently moved into a million-dollar home in Northern Virginia. She home-schools their four children. His White House salary was $161,000. A million-dollar home on that kind of income? Hard to support without some outside income.