All that you say is true!
And, that is precisely why we need to somehow, someway, institute BIs for prospective federal politicians!
Don’t laugh for what I am going to say next but it is their respective jobs to do that very thing!
1. The press - They have the resources to actually dig in!
2. The voter - Said “vote sucker ... err politician” is not your mommy, your daddy, your lover\boyfriend\girlfriend the messiah or anything close! Unfortunately voters tend to forget that! If the politician has been in office longer then a decade its time to send them home! I also think too many people vote! I am always opposed to any voter registration etc. effort. If you don’t care enough to make the effort to go register you likely don’t care enough to vote intelligently!
Nicholson, Hansen, Aldrich Ames, etc all had BIs (in fact multiple BIs!), to me they don’t mean much.
Again who watches the watchers?
Ultimately its the voters!