The Political Machine Stinks

So Dick Cheney laments the weakening of the presidency after Watergate. “In 34 years, I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job,” Cheney declared on ABC in 2002.
One report has it:

Avoiding scandals has become one of Cheney's obsessions, and the vice president has repeatedly fought to expand executive privilege to create an informational firewall around the presidency.

Therein in, one would think, might be the problem. Politics, in the US and elsewhere, accepts that corruption is a serious problem, and steps need to be taken to protect from being caught.

With a former aide to French President Jacques Chirac was found guilty of corruption, we are seeing the same misuse of office being played out in Europe.
Michel Roussin, who was Chirac's chief of staff when the president was mayor of Paris before becoming head of state in 1995, was found guilty of involvement in a kickback scheme run between 1989 and 1995.
The scam provided illegal funds to politicians in exchange for contracts to build or repair Paris-area schools.
By the end of the trial both right and leftwing political parties were revealed to have received illicit donations from companies tendering for public contracts.
While these politicians and their cronies line their pockets the rest of the community suffers.

If you take the Cheney line, however, the real crime is getting caught and implicating a President.
So how have we reached this stage where our body politic (speaking here of my very own Australian governments as well) have developed such a skewed view of probity and ethics?
How is it that the job of elected representative has evolved (or is it intelligent design?) into outright plunder of the public purse?

It seems that we are kidding ourselves with the sham of public election. It would be far more cost efficient, leaving even more plunder, to simply appoint known crooks and thugs.
The worst part now is that when a politician utters the words ethics, probity or voices opposition to corruption, there is no guarantee of how they define the terms. But in all probability you can expect a self serving definition.
The standards of the body politic stink! The ethics of those ‘buying’ high office are not in accord with real community leadership. And we won’t get any better until people start screaming from the rooftops and demanding better.
It’s the old question of ‘why do dogs lick their privates?’ Because they can! We let them!