South Korea Ferry Mt. 6:45 p.m. EDT, April 18, 2014I hear lately from many people about John Rowland. For some the question is rhetorical. Others want actual answers. But there are none, or none that satisfy. So it is with every such scandal: A once fresh-faced politician risks office, family, honor and freedom for a wad of cash. (Or that odd fetish of corrupt politicians, luxury home improvements) Eventually, he stands disgraced; family shamed; career ruined; cronies all turned, sentenced or fled. XJohn Rowland U.S. Such answers lie outside politics, or even criminal justice. Peruse a psychiatry manual, or the Internet, under such headings as "sociopathy" or "narcissism" and you'll find some relevant language, but who's to say to whom it applies? At the heart of every act of self-destruction lies a mystery. At the end of Othello, Iago, asked to explain himself, will only say, "What you know, you know." To Shakespeare, all evil is and must remain a mystery. Luckily, the issue for us isn't the mind of a lone recidivist. From his first race for state wide office, Rowland's career was marked by profound ethical lapses and serial violations of state and federal law. In all of these he was enabled, not just by his accomplices but by our political and judicial systems, by the press and, ultimately, by us all. Rowland's latest criminal indictment includes seven felony counts of conspiracy and fraudulent deception. Federal prosecutors charged him with illegally scheming to get political candidates to pay him secretly for his advice. The maximum sentences total 57 years. If convicted, he'll likely receive a lighter sentence, but he'll still be looking at a lot of jail time. He won't be the only one paying a price. Tallying up all the money spent on John Rowland in 12 years of investigating, prosecuting, impeaching, incarcerating and monitoring probation, we arrive at a sum in the millions of dollars to add to the hundreds of millions lost to his cronyism and corruption. We might have been spared some or all of this expense had we only done our jobs along the way. Running against Rowland for governor in 1994, I pointed out that since leaving Congress he'd pulled down a million dollars as a lobbyist for corporate giants including Textron, Electric Boat and United Technologies Corp. Federal laws forbade members of Congress from lobbying so soon upon leaving office and required all lobbyists to register and report their financial activities. Rowland ignored them. In the same brazen spirit in which Newt Gingrich would later claim Fannie Mae employed him as a historian, Rowland claimed he'd been hired to offer strategic advice. Only one corporation, Textron, released a copy of a Rowland contract. It expressly anticipated that he might lobby. The Justice Department declined to investigate. To the best of my memory, not one editorial was written. Thus began for Rowland an amazing run of enabling by institutions we count on to uphold ethical standards. He won the 1994 election after suppressing a police report of a domestic incident. In office, he was twice caught violating ethics laws but was allowed to pay fines without admitting guilt. He engineered an illegal $220 million loan from a quasi-public agency to infamous Enron, but legislative leaders declined to take sworn testimony on the matter. He flouted the law to hide a massive state deficit, but no elected official spoke up. Twenty years after Rowland's "corporate strategist" scam, Washington's revolving doors turn so fast Congress seems little more than a development league for K Street lobbyists, while Rowland is in jeopardy for doing essentially the same thing: violating laws that protect public integrity. In Connecticut we still rely on federal prosecutors to put our house in order. Had Rowland been held accountable for his first offense in the '90s he'd have faced a stiff fine, but not prison. Who knows where he'd be today, but better off is a safe guess. As would we all. A guy who robs a dozen banks piques our curiosity. But if he robs the same bank a dozen times, our attention turns to the bank manager. This is especially true if we're its depositors. Here we're not just depositors. We're the board of directors. It's time we did our due diligence. Let Rowland probe his own conscience and let us look to ours. Copyright © 2014, The Hartford Couranthc-op-commentary-curry-why-did-rowland-do-it-0420-20140418 Sign-up For Our Free Newsletters: News@3, Business Midday, Weekender, More... More Opinion, comments and conversation from The Hartford Courant -- courant. Free newsletters! Sign up for Breaking News, Huskies, Weekender, Midday Business and more. 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