DATE: Friday, September 5, 1997             TAG: 9709040024

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B11  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Keith Monroe 

                                            LENGTH:   85 lines

AGRICULTURE SECRETARY SCANDAL ESPY SOLD HIS REPUTATION FOR A FEW TRINKETS

We've all heard the expression, don't sell yourself cheap. Apparently former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy wasn't paying attention.

Cynics contend that every man has his price, but the Espy case is only the latest evidence that in Washington public officials can be had at bargain basement rates.

One is reminded of the sexist joke once popular, ironically, with feminists who regarded it as a cogent summary of their view that marriage is institutionalized exploitation.

A wealthy gentleman seeks the sexual favors of a young woman who spurns his advances unless he will marry her and share his mansion, servants, limos, bank account. He declines and makes a counter offer: $100.

``What do you take me for?'' the deeply shocked ingenue asks.

``We've already established that,'' he returns. ``Now, we're just haggling over price.''

That's something Espy doesn't seem to have done. He's under indictment for fraud, mail fraud, soliciting and accepting gifts, witness tampering and traveling in interstate commerce to receive illegal gifts.

That list of particulars makes the former Ag chief sound like Dillinger, or at the least Ivan Boesky. But in fact Espy risked his job, his reputation and his future for trivia. He's accused of accepting tickets and travel to the U.S. Open, a Bullets-Knicks game, a Bulls-Suns game, and a Cowboys-Packers game along with $2,427-worth of free luggage.

The luggage part is easy to understand. You can't just jet off to all those skyboxes toting a duffle bag.

Ruining yourself for a kingdom may be tragedy, but for spectator sports and really cool carry-on bags it's farce. It is like throwing away your life for the prizes from a game show. To deepen the irony, if not the shame, it has been pointed out that accepting what Espy took would have been perfectly legal if he'd still been a member of Congress. Oddly, this is offered as an excuse rather than as a further indictment.

It isn't as if Espy was an innocent naif, however, upon whom people were forever thrusting gifts that he was too polite to turn down. Rather, he allegedly went out and proactively put the arm on people. He's said to have called the chairman of Quaker Oats to request free basketball tickets, for instance.

And it isn't as if Espy thought all this was above board. He's charged with having underlings falsify paperwork to cover up some of the gifts, brunches, freebies, comps and - dare we say? - bribes.

Whether they were bribes is the $64,000 question, of course. Actually, it's a $35,000 question. That's how much the various gratuities supposedly added up to.

(Some have bemoaned the fact that the investigation to uncover $35,000 in illicit gifts has cost the taxpayers $9 million. But is it really surprising that a team of lawyers would cost 270 times as much as one Agriculture secretary? Or that taxpayers would get charged more than corporate tycoons who get the bulk rate?)

But to return to the main issue: Did Espy give good weight? It is unlikely that Quaker Oats, Tyson Foods, Sun-Diamond Growers and other outfits heavily regulated by the Agriculture Department were writing checks to Espy's girlfriend and giving him free plane rides, limo rides and sports tickets because of his winning personality. They wanted something. Did he deliver?

Either way, it's a crime to take the handouts. But some of the alleged quids pro quo are really ugly - attempting to tilt policy on fecal contamination of poultry to favor Tyson Foods, for example. What's a little fecal contamination among friends, if you can get a really good view of Michael Jordan dunking the ball?

It's hard to decide which would be worse: To learn that Espy betrayed the public trust and pandered to people he was supposed to be regulating for a $173 Waterford bowl and a day in the skybox. Or to learn that Espy took the gratuities but didn't provide any service for them?

Either way, the low price he set on his good name is pathetic. It brings to mind the wonderful moment in ``A Man for All Seasons'' when Sir Thomas More, who is prepared to go to his death over a point of morality, confronts Richard Rich, a disappointed office seeker whose perjured testimony has doomed More.

The condemned man isn't surprised that the unscrupulous weasel has sold him out for advancement, but he's stunned to learn the price was so low. Rich has been given the post of attorney general for Wales. ``What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?'' More says. ``But for Wales!''

The Espy case is the similar. The up-and-coming young man has wrecked himself and may have been prepared to endanger the nation's health. For what? For football tickets, luggage and brunch!

MEMO: Mr. Monroe is editor of the editorial page of The Virginian-Pilot.

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