Keeping the Faith: In Government We Trust (as Far as We Can Throw It):
"TO listen to pollsters, politicians and pundits, you might think 'the public trust' in government has been urgently threatened at every juncture since the Enron scandal broke in 2001 - or, in the view of the Democratic presidential candidates, since the inauguration of George W. Bush.

The year just ended provided its own fodder for distrust. If the herbal supplement ephedra is so bad for you, why wasn't it banned years ago rather than just last week? What about mad cow disease? They said it couldn't happen here. Remember the budget surplus? Where did it go? Don't forget those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ('Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than to consciously make a case for war based on false claims,' Gen. Wesley K. Clark said last fall.) "

In the fall it was revealed that some mutual fund hotshots, apparently immune to regulation, were favoring fat cats and not ordinary investors. And yes, Parmalat is a foreign company, but its name is on American milk cartons. Nobody knew that a $5 billion - $5 billion - account was just a figment of the company's imagination?

Finally, wasn't the nation just put on Orange Alert? Tell that to the pilot of a private plane who went joy riding around the Statue of Liberty last week, or to the guy who managed to hijack a bus from the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan and drive it to Kennedy Airport. No alarm was raised for seven hours that the bus was even missing.

For all of this, it might not be surprising that public faith in government, in big business and in institutions in general appears to be dwindling.…

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/weekinreview/04robe.html?pagewanted=all&position=