It's comforting to know that my home sprawl, Palm Beach County, is famous for more than Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and the Butterfly Ballot. We are also one of the capitals of government sleaze.

With three out of seven commissioners behind bars for corruption, we need only one more for a quorum.

Right before the latest, Mary McCarty, was sentenced yesterday to three-and-a-half years in the hoosegow, her lawyer argued that her stint should be reduced to a year and a day, on the grounds that the scope of her crimes did not approach that of her already-incarcerated colleagues, Warren Newell and Tony Masilotti.

This is like saying that while you indeed did the crime, you should get points for incompetence because you couldn't manage to self-deal as much as the next guy.

We all wish Mary well during her sojourn at Club Fed. She seems the type who will benefit from the period of introspection. Considering how things are going here on the "outside," her position is, in many ways, enviable. She gets three guaranteed squares a day, doesn't have to worry about losing the roof over her head, and enjoys steady employment making Federal license plates or whatever it is they produce in the big house.