Word: venalities
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...They worry, too, that their political leadership remains deeply venal and inept. Corruption has become so endemic, the families of those killed in sectarian violence are sometimes forced to bribe officials at the Baghdad morgue to release the body quickly. An Iraqi may point to a government building now, but it is usually with a finger of accusation...
...government asked the police to investigate reports that Labour Party sources might be offering honors such as knighthoods and peerages in return for donations to the party. That would contravene a 1925 law drawn up to ban the peddling of titles after Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George, a venal realpolitiker, exploited his powers of patronage for the benefit of party coffers. Four wealthy businessmen--all recommended by Labour for peerages, although their names were later withdrawn from contention--admit that they secretly made loans to Labour before the 2005 general election but say the cash was given on commercial...
...Some characterize such events as part of an epic struggle to determine whether or not this nation of 145 million people will become a fundamentalist Islamic state. Cynical observers see a more venal struggle-over who gets to control the country's coffers for the next few years. "[A lot of politicians] cast themselves in these mantles of competing nationalisms, but the bottom line is they're a bunch of crooks," says the Western diplomat. Reinforcing that impression, Bangladesh has had the unhappy distinction over the past five years of being ranked worst or near worst on Berlin-based Transparency...
There's nothing especially venal about the ancients in this regard; nobody's perfect or ever was. The classical world knew crosshatching as much as bands of white and black; the Greeks and Romans had their moments of doubt. Here's Virgil's Aeneas in the underworld, catching sight of his erstwhile lover, Dido, Queen of Carthage, whom he had deserted as she climbed onto her funeral pyre: "Oh, dear god, was it I who caused your death?/ I swear by the stars, by the Powers on high ... I left your shores, my Queen, against my will ... Stay a moment...
...Ford had been a different sort of public figure, the profits he reaped from his ex-presidency would have provoked an outcry. But the public had never perceived him as devious or venal; he was still, to a degree unique in recent presidential history, one of the people...