Well gentlemen, I hope your collective cynicism here extends to not only governmental entities but to all groups of people, because it is indeed deep in the human soul to be more lenient with our judgement when it comes to one of "us" than when it concerns those "others" out there.
Yep, this phenomenon is practiced all the time in instances of familial bonds, between friends, those who's religious convictions are shared, and a host of other likenesses people hold as a common denominator.
It basically boils down to the idea of "Loyalty" being prized higher than the ideas of "Ethics" and "Objectivity".
