The USA also has a storied history and marked reputation among nations for its political corruption.
Admittedly this is coming from a Brit, but you lot have sort of taken the baton and run with it since the war.
Anyway, the point I was making, rather clumsily, is that putting the reason down to the place and leaving it at that is lazy and a bit snobbish. And it doesn't matter if the place is USA or Chicago, or some particular suburb in Chicago. Some people were corrupt and those people should pay, but making it geographical just invites prejudice.
> The USA also has a storied history and marked reputation among nations for its political corruption
Not so far as I can see. Political corruption is the norm in most of the world; the U.S. is perhaps not the best, but it's far, far, from the worse, even amongst roughly equivalent first-world nations. Historically I'd say the U.S. even seems to be rather well-thought of.
You could certainly trot out a list of countries many people around the world would probably consider "better" than the U.S. in terms of political corruption, but the U.S. is nowhere near the bottom of the heap.
Many people dislike the U.S., consider them a bully, etc, especially since Iraq, but "dislike" is very distinct from "consider corrupt."
Per capita and income adjusted there are far more corrupt countries.
But in terms of sheer amount of money spent on distorting politics at home, combined with countries invaded or otherwise screwed around with for economic reasons abroad, the USA is definitely hands down number one since the second world war.
This is not because the US is particularly nasty, it just has more resources to throw at this kind of stuff since becoming the dominant superpower. Though you do not become the dominant superpower by being all that nice either.
We are known locally and everywhere else for our political corruption. I think it extends way past politics though. I have lots of local connections – the "I'll scratch your back you scratch mine" mentality is strong around here. I would be shocked if we were unique for it, but it seems to be a common feature of the land.
edit - from an outsiders perspective, I thought somewhere like Washington or Vegas would be considered more way more corrupt than Chicago. I guess it is different types of corrupt, as Chicago managed the version where everybody left and they ran out of money. Perhaps the problem is they weren't corrupt enough.
Maybe you are thinking of Detroit... Chicago's doing pretty well economically and culturally.
Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas are not known for the same style of grafty, political-machine corruption as, say, Chicago or NYC Tammany Hall. The former two don't internally operate at the same scale as a Chicago and I doubt most of the rest of the US cares about their internal goings-on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_history_of_Chicago