Protection Racket.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)

Money Politics: Terry McAuliffe still hasn't explained his Global Crossing bonanza. But it's easy to find his views on campaign finance reform.

Borrowing a page from his mentor, Bill Clinton, Democratic Party chief McAuliffe is simply changing the subject. It takes Clintonian chutzpah indeed to turn a $100,000 investment in a now-failed firm into $18 million and then preach for campaign reform.

Keating Five veteran John McCain has had to make room on the campaign finance reform soapbox for a host of hustlers hoping to submerge their own sins in a self-righteous appeal for a "clean" system.

Notice that the emphasis is always on the "system" -- as if the corruption resides in the abstract rather than in flesh-and-blood human beings. By shifting guilt from individuals to an abstract system, the McCains and the McAuliffes are absolved of responsibility. Plus they get Brownie points from the media for having the "courage" to expose the system that corrupts them all.

The root of bad money in politics is not the absence of this or that soft-money rule, but an all-too-powerful government. One so large and intrusive that companies reflexively give protection money to both Democrats and Republicans.

Global Crossing Chairman Gary Winnick did not give McAuliffe a heads-up on quick bucks out of the goodness of his heart. He did so with the goal of weaseling his way into the White House. McAuliffe, with $17.9 million from Winnick's company, naturally obliged him.

And it almost worked. Global Crossing got a $400 million Pentagon contract last spring. But it was canceled within a month, reports Web newshound Matt Drudge, after serious questions were raised about the bidding process ...