This situation with Jack Abramoff, who will be going to jail for 11 years, and that after cutting a deal with prosecutors, is a gift to conservatives, and the conservative movement! I think Peggy Noonan says it best:

If the problem with government is that it is run by people and not, as James Madison put it, angels, the problem with big government is that it is run by a lot of people who are not angels. They can, together and in the aggregate, do much mischief. They can and inevitably will produce a great deal of injustice, corruption and heartlessness…

This is essentially why conservatives of my generation and earlier generations don’t like big government. They don’t even like government. We know we have to have one, that it is necessary, that it can and must do good, that it has real responsibilities that must be met. Madison again, in Federalist 51: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

These are wise words.

As a Christian and a conservative, I heartily agree. I see humanity as inherently flawed. As a Christian, I call this our “sin nature.” Human beings are not fundamentally good. Rather, we trend towards pleasing and serving ourselves rather than others. We do not naturally think of the greater good, we look first to our own good, then, if we have time, towards the greater good.

We must have government, but if we are to be led by fellow humans, all of whom are flawed, then we must place whatever restrictions are necessary on government to insure that they will never take on too much power, get too much control over the lives of ordinary people. In a sense, the selfishness of the ordinary person must, whenever possible, serve as a check against the selfishness of the powerful.

That way, when the ones with wealth and power begin to think they know how to run our lives for us, we can basically tell them to “get lost.” We can say, in effect, “You’re fired! Go home and we’ll bring in someone new who hasn’t yet let his or her ego get out of control.” Someday, that new person may develop a mammoth ego, at which time, hopefully, voters will fire them too.

And that is the key component of our government, the ability that ordinary people have to replace the ego-driven incumbents who lose sight of their purpose. It is exactly this that I and many other conservatives have been grumbling about increasingly over the past few years.

Our fellow conservatives in Washington have lost their way. They’ve begun to tell us that big government is not so bad, that they can use it for good, rather than for evil.

But we’re not buying it. We’ll never buy it. We know better, we see through the BS to the heart of the matter, which is, specifically, the heart of those in Washington. Many of them have completely lost their way.

That the Abramoff scandal will disproportionately effect Republicans, I feel quite certain. That this, rather than all the manufactured scandals pushed by the MSM, is almost certain to upset Republican majorities in Washington, I again feel quite certain.

If it does NOT effect Republicans in a major way, I will worry. And, I think, most other conservatives and conservative thought leaders agree with me on this.

Here are a few examples:

“As I’ve noted before, Abramoff spread his stench across both parties. But principled conservatives must call Abramoff what he is–a sleazebag plain and simple, as I’ve noted before–and condemn his criminal activities unequivocally.” Michelle Malkin

“I think it is time for conservative to begin piling on the Abramoff thing for a couple of reasons. First, liberals are right in this instance. The fact that this hideous wretch climbed to the heights of power under GOP leadership in Washington, shoot, with the aid and comfort of the GOP leadership, is a scandal in and of itself. I was around in 1994 when we won the House and the Senate for the first time in forty years. I recall distinctly using the phrase “K Street fat cats” in mail pieces against Democrat incumbents who, while not breaking any laws by cozying up to these sleaze ball lobbyists, certainly violated common decency by allowing them to draft their legislation and fund their political operations. The GOP of the Abramoff era behaved no differently, sad to say.” Ankle Biting Pundits

The Abramoff story, though made awkward for Democrats by the fact that it involves a lot of Democrats, too, is still bad for the Republicans…

Republicans need to be worried about this. The temptation will be to try to shore up their position by buying votes, but the GOP base is offended by this stuff and may be motivated to stay home. As always, the GOP’s best hope lies in the Democrats doing something stupid. But that’s a hope, not a strategy, notwithstanding how well it’s worked in the past.

Limiting pork — which will require structural changes in the House and Senate — is not only a good political move. It’s the right thing to do. The question is whether the GOP will be smart enough, and principled enough, to do something that’s both smart, and right. I’m not overly optimistic about that. But who knows? Maybe enough members of Congress will read Joel Miller’s book! Glenn Reynolds

There is plenty of other good commentary out there in the conservative wing of the Blogosphere. I’ll go after some more of it soon.