The politician and the journalist

The power some people have is disproportionate to the intelligence they exhibit, though they themselves may be unaware of their lack of intelligence and say things they really don't mean or, if they mean what they say and stick by it, their words become part of a public record some other people would like to forget.

The kind of story that should be written about this kind of power, an expose at heart since everything in it is so awful, showing the worst tendencies of humankind, isn't written, and instead the journalist writes a story that makes the reader think better of himself.

Bob Corker, Republican Senator from Tennessee, serves as chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for the 114th Congress. A journalist reporting on Corker's power, especially his rise to it, would find much that would make us, the readers, feel better about ourselves.