Rich Bribing Top Colleges for Their Kids Shocks You? [OPINION]

I thought we all were thinking this was the case all along. I can't count how many times I've been told by Trump haters or Bush bashers that "Their daddy bought their way in."

C'mon, this really surprises you? Last week, a Hollywood smallscale darling, actress Lori Loughlin, and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli were charged with bribery. They are the mainstream media's flavor of the week.

They are accused of taking part in a college admissions fraud scheme. Their two daughters are attending the University of Southern California—for now, but both are expected to drop out over fears of students' reaction to the news.

I didn't know this was news; I thought this was an agreed upon, silent practice. I still do. Most people can't be successful in doing criminal things because they just aren't either smart enough to get away with it, or aren't too big to take down.

Four dozen people that include Loughlin, Giannulli and Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman were charged in the alleged scheme, in which people worked with a crooked college admissions advisor to bribe their kids' way into top-ranked universities.

If the iceberg only shows 10 percent of its mass, I fear to think how big this entire criminal enterprise is. All one has to do is listen to many a Washingtonian insider for three to four minutes and begin to suspect the degree they got from that Ivy League institution has to be either a miraculous oversight or, more likely, a sham.

How many yacht people do you know? Well, if it's more than a few, then you know I'm right. Most of these trust-funded, completely incapable, adult toddlers could not possibly have rightfully earned their degrees. In fact, some of the ones I know would have trouble graduating from the Wanda Trussler's School of Beauty, whose major includes taking classes like "The Theory of Hairpins."

It is curious to me that authorities have done to Loughlin almost exactly what they've also done to Patriots owner Bob Kraft, who was allegedly videotaped getting oral sex-for-pay at a brothel disguised as a massage parlor in Florida.

Like Kraft, it is Loughlin, not the enterprise accepting their money, who is the focus of the arrests.

Since when is the buyer a bigger hit than getting the seller? We don't do that for fencing, drugs or black market purchases of every kind. Prosecutors want the pimp, not the john. They want the dealer, not the junkie.

That's not to downplay the role of those looking to buy their way in. By doing so, they have created a victim in each case. A bogus entrance to, say, USC creates a denied entrance by an actual deserving applicant. The trajectory of the life of that student is altered by deceit and corruption.

Many things for that unwitting victim will change for good or bad but no one has that right to change it by illegal and indifferent practice. I just don't think most people who are paying the dough happen to consider that rippling effect. But the takers of their money do. They stuff their pockets and write up the letters of denial in the same hour.

So why the change of heart with celebrity offenders? Loughlin is only doing what she thought was best for her children's future, and she didn't invent the idea. She was told who she could approach and for how much. Her kids will be grown and gone from school and the hands in those schools will still be stretched out, accepting money from the next parent and the ones after that.

Who knows how many of us would decide what to do if our kids fell short of their preferred college but we could get them in through nefarious means?

In Kraft's curious case, we've learned that, all these weeks later, no one has been arrested for sex or human trafficking yet, but Robert Kraft paying a $100 bucks for an orgasm from a consenting adult in privacy is national news anyway.

Not excusing those purchasing, but I think the police are not doing themselves a favor by prioritizing the humiliation of celebrities before going after those peddling their vices. That is true for Florida and California.

I don't like this trend. No sirree, not one bit.

Ken Pittman is the host of The Ken Pittman Show on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Contact him at ken.pittman@townsquaremedia.com and follow him on Twitter @RadioKenPittman. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.