Every scandal has its road kill: the pedestrians who stumble into the headlights of the oncoming 18-wheeler.

William Andrews Clark was caught in a bribery scandal during a campaign for the U.S. Senate - he was said to describe the Montana legislators this way: 'I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.'

After every massacre in a school, Americans grasp at quick cures. 'Let's install metal detectors and give guns to teachers' Let's crack down on troublemakers, weeding out kids who fit the profile of a gunman. Let's buy bulletproof whiteboards for the students to scurry behind, or train kids to throw erasers or cans of soup at an attacker.'

The Secret Service once watched for people who fit the popular profile of dangerousness: the lunatic, the loner, the threatener, the hater.

The system is worse now than it was during Watergate. I think it's sad. It took a scandal like Watergate to get change before, and that is what it will take a second time.

The Federal Highway Administration has allowed states to take advantage of a loophole in federal regulations, delaying bridge inspections to every four years instead of the two years normally required.