If there’s a unifying theme in Washington lately, it’s this: everyone wants accountability, just not for themselves. Whether it’s a shaky ethics probe, a cell-phone-records carve-out, a D.C. National Guard face-off, or the Justice Department playing investigator of the investigators, the common thread is that too many leaders seem allergic to the hard work of honest self-governance.

Let’s start with Congress, which is always a safe place to diagnose national dysfunction. When allegations against Rep. Cory Mills surfaced, the House responded by choosing the safest option imaginable: punt. Instead of tackling the substance—accusations ranging from stolen valor to questionable business dealings—they sent it to the Ethics Committee like a middle-schooler slipping a bad report card under the rug. “Due process!” they say. And yes, due process matters. But due process without urgency starts to look a whole lot like avoidance. As Scripture puts it, “He that walketh uprightly walketh surely: but he that perverteth his ways shall be known” (Proverbs 10:9).

Then there’s the great Senate cell-phone records spectacle. A late-night provision sneaks into a spending bill giving senators the right to sue the government for half a million dollars if their records were subpoenaed without notice. Look, oversight of the executive branch is important. But when the people writing the laws suddenly grant themselves a VIP compensation package, it feels less like accountability and more like Congress becoming its own insurance company.

Meanwhile, out in the country, the conflict between strong federal enforcement and local autonomy keeps boiling over. The federal judge pushing back on the D.C. National Guard deployment was a needed reminder that even a president has to color inside the statutory lines. A strong commander-in-chief is good for national security; a commander-in-chief using troops for long-term local policing without clear authority is not. Conservatives rightfully value law and order, but we should also value limited government. When federal muscle substitutes for local responsibility, both principles get bruised.

And then there’s Chicago, where a U.S. citizen ends up shot seven times during a federal immigration operation. Charges dropped, narratives conflicting, trust fraying. Supporting border security and opposing lawlessness doesn’t require tolerating sloppy, opaque, or overzealous enforcement. You can believe in strong borders and also believe that agents should be transparent, trained, and accountable. That’s not contradictory. That’s just called being a grown-up.

Even the job market joined the theme this month: mixed, uncertain, and strangely evasive, sorta like the economic version of a congressional press conference. Yes, we added 119,000 jobs. But with unemployment rising and revisions rolling in like slow-motion bad news, the message is the same we see in politics: the surface looks okay, but the foundation isn’t as sturdy as advertised. If Washington were serious about economic health, it would stop treating mild good news as an excuse to pat itself on the back and start focusing on long-term fundamentals: spending discipline, real wage growth, and policies that reward work rather than bureaucracy.

Finally, the DOJ’s probe into the Schiff mortgage case—and the probe into how the probe was probed—is Washington in miniature: a political ouroboros, endlessly swallowing its own tail. If there’s evidence of wrongdoing, the case should advance. If not, shut it down. Dragging it out just breeds cynicism and conspiracy theories on all sides.

Across every one of these stories—from ethics fights to investigations to energy battles to economic jitters—America is facing the same shortage: courageous leadership. Not performative outrage, not selective accountability, not procedural shell games. Actual leadership. Leadership that puts country over convenience, transparency over spin, and integrity over tribalism.

We’re reminded in the Bible: “Let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay” (Matthew 5:37). Washington seems to prefer “yea, except when politically inconvenient,” and “nay, unless my base needs red meat.”

America doesn’t need perfection from its leaders, but it does need adults, the kind who tell the truth, enforce the law fairly, respect limits on their own power, and accept consequences when they fall short. That’s not a Democratic ideal or a Republican ideal. It’s a moral ideal. It also happens to be a conservative one, rooted in the belief that ordered liberty collapses when those entrusted with authority refuse to govern themselves.

If our leaders want to rebuild trust, they don’t need new slogans, new committees, or new carve-outs. They need something much simpler:

Courage. Accountability. And a willingness to take their own medicine before prescribing it to the rest of us.