Who Is Grubbier-- France's Ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy Or L.A.'s Ex-Sheriff Lee Baca? How About Mississippi Nutcase Chris McDaniel?

What's wrong with voters who allow themselves to be suckered by conservative politicians?

I was listening to an amazing broadcast on KCRW the other night. It was a discussion between an anchor who didn't know it was amazing and a beat reporter who was just as clueless. The reporter was babbling to the anchor about how 6 officials of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department were convicted of obstructing a federal probe into violence against inmates in county jails. She reported that they could get long prison sentences-- like 15 years or more-- but that no one thought they would because, well you know… sheriffs, service, good guys, all that. Well, of course. But that wasn't nuthin' compared to what came next. Everyone in L.A. knows that this leads right to the corrupt, disgraced ex-Sheriff, Lee Baca. But another word you could use to describe Baca along with "corrupt" and "disgraced" would be "connected." The reporter acknowledged the case could easily implicate Baca but that prosecuting him wasn't just a matter of justice but also "a matter of politics" and decisions would have to be made "outside of California." The dumbbell anchor didn't hear anything weird or untoward or worth following up on. OK.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said that the 6 criminals "participated in a scheme to thwart a federal grand jury investigation into violations of basic constitutional rights guaranteed to both prisoners and visitors to county jails… While an overwhelming majority of law enforcement officials serve with honor and dignity, these defendants tarnished the badge by acting on the false belief that they were above the law." Yes, above the law, like Lee Baca and like "we" seem to expect our public officials to all perceive themselves. Wednesday morning Brett Logiurato, reporting for Business Insider explained how Mississippi Tea Party extremist Chris McDaniel, a state Senator representing a stretch of south Mississippi skirting US 59 south of Laurel, is now raising money for himself by claiming he has a case against the winner, Senator Thad Cochran. Presumably there are teabaggers who find this credible enough to contribute.

A source on the Cochran campaign fired back in a conversation with Business Insider Wednesday, in which the source dismissed McDaniel as a "clinically diagnosable narcissist" and a scam artist.

"The guy is basically Joel Osteen," the source said of McDaniel in a phone interview Wednesday morning. "He's such a phony, and he's taking advantage of these people to stay in the spotlight. This is such a publicity stunt. He can't stand the fact that he lost… Chris McDaniel is a trial lawyer, and he’s acting like one. He’s throwing out false flags and things that just aren’t true, and trying to get them into the news stream… All this is is a candidate who's a total egomaniac-- I really believe he is a clinically diagnosable narcissist. This is all about him and his 15 minutes in the spotlight. The second he concedes, the circus moves on."

The good news, though, is that this kind of sociopathic behavior isn't unique to conservative politicians in America. Let's take a look at what's going down with an especially slimy conservative politician in France, defeated ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy. French TV is reporting that his political ambitions have dimmed. That's because he was arrested on corruption charges, taking illegal campaign money (around $200,000 in CASH) from a shriveled up and senile L'Oréal billionairess, Liliane Bettencourt, who preferred paying bribes to paying taxes. At the time, Sarkozy had also taken a $65 million bribe from Gaddafi. ("During this investigation, French magistrates wire-tapped conversations between Sarkozy and his lawyer and made 'unsettling' discoveries.") He's been planning on running again in 2017.

It is the first time since 1958-- the beginning of the Fifth Republic-- that a French former president has been taken into police custody. He is, however, not the first to face a judge. His mentor in politics, Jacques Chirac, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence for embezzlement.

…To cut a long story short, Sarkozy is alleged to have built a network of informants within the judiciary and the court of cassation who kept him and his lawyers informed of the progress of the Bettencourt investigations and every other sensitive dossier he might be linked to. The former president and his lawyer, who appeared to know that their phone was bugged by the investigative judges, resorted to buying pre-paid mobile phones under fake names. As a result, Sarkozy, his lawyer and two judges from the court of cassation were taken into police custody for questioning on Monday and Tuesday and have now been put under investigation for "abuse of power." Investigators also want to find out if Sarkozy promised top-level jobs in exchange of confidential information.

Sarkozy may well end up being released. However, if nothing else, this new episode is shedding some more light on "le système Sarkozy." Here is a president who never hesitated to call high civil servants in order to grill them and obtain confidential information. Le Monde revealed yesterday how Sarkozy, by calling and interrogating the head of intelligence service on the Gaddafi investigation, put such a senior civil servant in an untenable position.