Virginia's Real Politics
A guide to news, commentary and resources in Southwest Virginia

Preston Bryant is a Republican who has represented Lynchburg and part of Amherst County in the Virginia House of Delgates since 1996.

Or does it seem there has been an unusual rash of media reports lately about public figures and companies who - allegedly -- are not what they seemed to be? Or who at least have given us cause for pause.

Enron. Arthur Andersen. Vance Wilkins. Martha Stewart. WorldCom.

Certainly the list started before Enron. If we're looking for the most notorious super-duper, grand-scale disappointment of late signifying that even the most exalted can let us down, well, that'd be Bill Clinton. Going back a tad more -- but that'd be 30 years -- we can proffer up Richard Nixon.

But truly, it is Clinton who ushered in a new era of public scandal and redefined public embarrassment.

And human beings being what they are -- just that, human beings -- the list will continue to grow beyond the kitchen-perfect Martha Stewart and the Mahogany Row residents at WorldCom.

This is my first column for Roanoke.com, where I am to offer up on a weekly basis the Republican view of the world to counterbalance Barnie Day's Democratic (and certainly more witty) view of it all.

I look forward to writing the column, and I hope you'll visit this site frequently -- not just to be entertained by country, political yarns, but also to learn a bit about Virginia and the political goings-on that define her.

There will be time enough for me to go head-to-head with Barnie, and I'll relish doing that.

But for my premiere column, I wanted to say publicly what my wife and I have been discussing over the dinner table.

It's all about trust. Public trust.

In short, where has it gone?

Why is it that politicians responsible for maintaining the public trust -- and who know their magnified lives are being inspected oh, so closely by the whimsically nosey and legitimately skeptical alike -- roll the dice and run unnecessary, even stupid risks?

Why is it that high-dollar CEOs, who stand to lose everything for themselves and their shareholders, seem to be willing to risk doing so?

Really, why is it that politicians are willing to undermine our political system and that capitalists are willing to undermine capitalism -- the very two structural bases that underpin the Great American Experiment?

I just can't figure it out.

I don't mean to sound overly incredulous. Rarely does abject incredulity get you anywhere. Most simply see it as one's naïveté.

So. As for me -- and my charge in this column to be the Republican voice -- I can only speak to the need for politicians to be ever-more vigilant in restoring people's faith in what we do to make the world spin more smoothly.

I look around the Virginia GOP and see more decent and honorable public servants than can possibly be counted.

Jerry Kilgore -- truly, the whole darn Kilgore family -- comes most immediately to mind. Who better to be our party's standard-bearer at this time than our do-the-right-thing Attorney General?

There's also Salem's own Del. Morgan Griffith, one of the most straight-up guys I know. (Some in the press corps have even nicknamed him "Boy Scout.") I am proud that he's my Majority Leader.

Yeah, this column is to be about Virginia politics. I hope that Barnie and I will labor to write about the good in politics at least as often as we're obligated to highlight -- and "spin" -- the not-so-good.

I have a feeling that the many Jerrys and Morgans who are out there -- residing in both parties -- will give us at least the opportunity to spend more time writing about the good stuff.

Your thoughts?