As a political scandal, there isn't much in the guilty pleas of Lisa Wilson-Foley and her husband, nursing home executive Brian Foley, to federal charges of concealing her 2012 congressional campaign's hiring of disgraced former Gov. John G. Rowland. Rowland's help was of little value and Wilson-Foley lost the Republican primary.

It is far more a journalistic scandal insofar as Rowland, having become a talk-show host for WTIC-AM1080 in Hartford upon his release from federal prison, used his program to advance Wilson-Foley's candidacy without disclosing that he was on her payroll and refused to account for himself to his audience. For months the radio station also stood mute amid this deception.

The cynicism, nihilism, arrogance, stupidity, and shamelessness of it all are overwhelming, not diminished by Republican State Chairman Jerry Labriola's description of Wilson-Foley and her husband as "good Republicans" who now may "put this unfortunate episode behind them."

Those "good Republicans" disgraced the party insofar as their minor status in it allowed them to. And this was no mere "unfortunate episode" but an intricately calculated scheme to break campaign finance law and deceive the people whose votes Wilson-Foley sought.

And yet why is Connecticut taking the corruption of Wilson-Foley and Rowland so seriously while overlooking the continuing saga of corruption in Bridgeport of former state Sen. Ernie Newton? Wilson-Foley was finished politically long before she was prosecuted, and it was hard to imagine Rowland retaining any political influence or his radio job, which he lost on Thursday.

But Newton remains a political kingmaker in Bridgeport, whose huge electoral pluralities were and remain crucial to the Democratic state administration, and though he too has done federal prison time for corruption in office and faces additional campaign finance fraud charges, he has gone completely unrebuked.

As a member of the Bridgeport Democratic committee, Newton the other day nominated the committee's chairman, and when questioned about the appearances, explained, according to the Connecticut Post: "Our tent has to be big enough for everybody. Do you realize that half the folks voting Democratic in Bridgeport could be ex-felons? So they're looking at a voice."

Newton's estimate of the felonious character of his party in the city may be exaggerated but he has a point that bears far more heavily on public policy than anything involving Wilson-Foley and Rowland. After all, Connecticut's Democratic Party long has been devoted to policies like quickly restoring the voting rights of felons and obstructing employers seeking access to the criminal records of job applicants as if criminality is meaningless and should have no bearing on anything.

The bigger policy question is why, after a half century of public policy purporting to be aimed at alleviating poverty and reversing urban decline, Connecticut's cities are more desperate than ever. The state's political class may be grateful to Wilson-Foley and Rowland for the distraction.

Embracing contradiction

Are Connecticut Democrats working from F. Scott Fitzgerald's premise that the sign of a first-class intellect is the ability to hold two contrary ideas in mind simultaneously and still retain the ability to function?

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy tours the state hurling money at businesses to underwrite their expansion or just to induce them to stick around, and he proclaims that the economy is improving.

Meanwhile the General Assembly's Appropriations Committee has just proposed increasing welfare appropriations by tens of millions of dollars. The increase was prompted by "what we heard from the people of Connecticut," the committee's Senate chairman, Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, explains. "People are hurting."

State government's formula for prosperity seems to be more food stamps and home heating aid, a higher minimum wage, and subsidizing particular businesses to expand because businesses generally see nothing to be gained in doing it on their own.