Former President Barack Obama said on his new podcast that the federal government is “so much less corrupt” than it has probably ever been, in terms of bribes, patronage and favors. He said reforms curbing political machines also made it harder to pass legislation.
The remarks came in the third episode of A Great Book with Barack Obama, a six-episode Audible series that premiered Thursday. Obama and historian Jill Lepore were discussing Robert Penn Warren’s 1946 novel All the King’s Men.
Lepore said she did not mean to whitewash political machines, but argued they had been important to civil society. She said good-government reforms, including campaign-finance reforms and voter protections, killed the machines; the political-consultant industry replaced them.
