SCHADENFREUDE POST

Well, not really but that's what it will look like. I ran across this tidbit at Billmon's place and I couldn't resist but not because I have any ill-will toward the young woman. Instead, I think of how the Bennetts, the Boortzs and many others on the Right claim that giving people basic subsistence (welfare) robs them of their morality. The emphasis is on the morally debilitating effect of getting something you haven't earned.

Case in point:

Wal-Mart heiress in cheat probe returns diploma
Former roommate says she did homework for $20,000
Wednesday, October 19, 2005; Posted: 9:16 p.m. EDT (01:16 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Elizabeth Paige Laurie's name was on a sports arena when a former University of Southern California roommate alleged the Wal-Mart heiress paid her $20,000 to do her homework. Now it isn't even on a USC diploma.

Laurie, the granddaughter of Wal-Mart co-founder Bud Walton, has returned her degree, nearly a year after Elena Martinez told ABC's "20/20" that she had written term papers and done assignments for Laurie for three-and-a-half years.

"Paige Laurie voluntarily has surrendered her degree and returned her diploma to the university. She is not a graduate of USC," the school said in a statement dated September 30 but not widely disseminated until the school newspaper wrote about it late last week. "This concludes the university's review of the allegations concerning Ms. Laurie."

After the homework allegations surfaced last November, the University of Missouri changed the name of what was then Paige Sports Arena. Laurie's billionaire parents, Bill and Nancy Laurie, had received naming rights in exchange for donating $25 million toward the building's construction. Nancy Laurie is Walton's daughter.

I recall a line from a Henry James' novel that talks about the debilitating effect of inherited money but you can be sure our moral pundits will never mention that possibility.