Earlier this year, veteran political writer Thomas Edsall reported an eyebrow-raising fact about Americans' views of government.

Polling by Gallup, he noted, found that the proportion of Americans who believed government corruption is "widespread" had risen from 59 percent in 2006 to 79 percent in 2013.

"In other words," Edsall wrote, "we were cynical already, but now we're in overdrive."

Given the blanket coverage devoted to public officials charged with selling their influence, this shouldn't be surprising. Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife were convicted last month of violating public corruption laws.

Former mayors Ray Nagin, of New Orleans, and KwameKilpatrick, of Detroit, were good for months of headlines.

So were Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, convicted last year on influence-peddling charges, and Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who pleaded guilty to charges of misusing campaign funds.

If you add state and local officials who cross the line, it might seem that we're awash in corruption. Yet as political scientist Larry Sabato told The New York Times, that's more perception than reality. "I've studied American political corruption throughout the 19th and 20th centuries," he said, "and, if anything, corruption was much more common in much of those centuries than today."

Nor have the numbers through the past couple of decades risen. In 1994, according to the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, 1,165 people were charged in public-corruption cases, of whom 969 were convicted. Last year, 1,134 were charged, of whom 1,037 were convicted.

Corruption is hardly a negligible issue. Americans rightly have very little tolerance for public officials on the take. Officials who violate the law in this regard should face criminal prosecution and incarceration.

Americans remain uncomfortable with "corruption" as our forebears viewed it. A hefty majority believe that government is run on behalf of a few big interests. And Congress, whose ethics committees have not been rigorous in looking for misconduct that brings discredit on their chambers, has contributed to that view.

I would hardly contend that all who seek to promote their private interests are corrupt. But I do think the Founders had a valuable insight when they saw that a focus on private concerns could lead to neglect of the common good.

I have the uneasy feeling that too many politicians are self-absorbed, failing to put the country first, and using their office to promote their private interests.

Our founders had very firm ideas about the importance to the nation of "virtue" in a public official — and they were thinking expansively about the basic standards of public accountability.

Maybe it's time we looked to them for guidance.

Maybe it's time not to think of corruption only in the narrow sense of violations of specific laws or precepts, but more broadly in terms of failing to pursue the common good.

Lee Hamilton directs the Center on Congress at Indiana University. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.

Best Cases of Alien Abduction

By Billy Booth, ufos.about.com
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Alien Abduction Documented CasesPhoto by: B J Booth

1961 Betty and Barney Hill Abduction

Called the "flagship case" of alien abduction. A husband and wife (Betty and Barney Hill) taking a short vacation see a bright object in the evening. They are stopped on the road by aliens, and become part of an abduction case for the ages. Regressive hypnosis plays a major role in unveiling a dark secret... a secret of alien abduction, and medical experimentation.

1967 The Betty Andreasson Abduction

In South Ashburnham, Massachusetts on the night of January 25 1967, one of the most celebrated cases of UFO abduction began. Betty Andreasson was working in her kitchen while her seven children, mother, and father were in the living room... suddenly a bright light invades the house. From the yard, alien creatures are seen hopping toward the house! One of the strangest abduction cases.

1967 Abduction of Herbert Schirmer

As Patrolman Schirmer passed through the intersection of Highway 6 with Highway 63 on the outskirts of Ashland, he saw what appeared to be red lights on a large truck stopped a short way down Highway 63. He decided to turn around and check it out. He drove the short distance down 63 and stopped with his headlights shining on the object. According to Schirmer, the object was definitely not a truck. The red lights that he had seen were blinking through the oval portholes of a metallic, oval-shaped object.

1969 The Buff Ledge Camp Abduction

Only seven and a half years after the Betty and Barney Hill story, the New England states would again host an alien abduction. Buff Ledge in Vermont would be the site of a visitation by four UFOs which would make revolutionary aerial maneuvers, Two counselors would suffer missing time, and seek professional help.

1973 Pascagoula, Mississippi Abduction (Parker, Hickson)

Fifteen different people see a large, silver UFO fly over a housing project in St. Tammany Parish, New Orleans, Louisiana. Only a scant 24 hours later, Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson would unwillingly take a journey into the unknown... strange creatures with claw-like hands abduct them. J. Allen Hynek investigates.

1975 The Abduction of Sergeant Charles L. Moody

Alamogorde, New Mexico would be the location of a UFO encounter involving Air Force Sergeant Charles L. Moody on August 13, 1975. Moody was in the desert observing a meteor shower at ab 1:15 A.M. when he saw a glowing, metallic, disk-shaped object falling toward the ground about 300 feet away.

1975 The Travis Walton Abduction

As seven loggers began their journey home, they see a "luminous object, shaped like a flattened disc." All of the men agreed that Travis Walton, captivated by the sight, left the truck to get a closer look. A blue beam hits him, throwing him to the ground. He would vanish for five days, and soon begin telling his story of the inside of an extraterrestrial spacecraft.

1976 The Stanford, Kentucky Abductions

While America was still buzzing over the Travis Walton abduction, three women are abducted near Stanford, Kentucky. Heading for Hustonville on Highway 78, they suddenly see a "bright, red" object in the clear, night sky, turning a nice evening into a night of terror. Read about this in depth investigation here.

1976 The Allagash Abductions

The Allagash Waterway incident would involve multiple witnesses. Four artists were enjoying a canoeing trip on the Allagash Waterway when their pleasant evening was turned into a nightmare... A nightmare of missing time and alien abduction. At first only missing time, and then forgetfulness. Finally a connection is made, and little by the details become known in this compelling case of alien abduction.

1976 The Dechmont Forest Abduction

Robert Taylor was sixty-one-years-old at the time that he had the most unusual encounter of his life. He had worked as a forester all of his adult life in the Dechmont woods located in Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland. On the morning of Friday, November 9, 1979, he and his red setter rounded a corner on a forest trail and saw an unbelievable sight, a UFO! The object appeared to be hovering just above the forest floor. It made no sound, and seemed to be motionless.

1985 The Whitley Strieber Abduction

Well known writer Whitley Strieber would be abducted by aliens while in his isolated cabin in upstate New York over the Christmas season of 1985. He encountered 4 types of alien beings, which subjected him to medical tests.

1987 The Ilkley Moor Alien

A policeman named Philip Spencer claims to have taken a picture of an alien being. If this is true, it is one of only a few in existence. The scary Ilkley Moor in Yorkshire, England would hold the secret of the strange creature encountered one early morning. Godfrey was frightened, but ran after the creature, taking one photograph. See it here. Through hypnosis, he would recall an odd flying object, and an alien abduction.

1988 Father & Son Abducted

John Salter Jr. and his son are abducted by benevolent aliens. One of the few cases in which alien abduction turned out to be a good thing. Medical experimentation has a happy ending, with improved health for both abductees.

1989 Linda Cortile-Napolitano Abduction

An extremely compelling case of alien abduction is that of Linda Napolitano. Napolitano has claimed that she was abducted by the so-called "greys," who floated her from a closed bedroom window into a hovering UFO. As time went by, several different eye witnesses came forward to substantiate her claims... Several bystanders, including a well known politician, actually see the incident.

1993 The Kelly Cahill Abduction

In August 1993, 27-year-old Kelly Cahill, her husband, and three children were driving home after a visit to a friend's house. Their routine journey would soon become a harrowing trip into an unknown world of strange beings that occupied space but were void of color as we know it. The Dandenong foothills, near Victoria, Australia would be forever linked to one of the strangest creatures in Ufological archives.

1997 Abduction in Wales

One of the weirdest cases reported to the Welsh Federation of Independent Ufologists is the multiple sighting of UFOs on the same night - except one family got too close for comfort and were apparently abducted. The strange and disturbing events began to unfold when for several nights an elderly man living in Little Orme, Conwy, was troubled by what he called "frightening" beams of light over the Great Orme.