Danny, I Fink You're Wrong

I'm a little mystified by THIS post on Danny Finkelstein's Comment Central blog. He takes me to task for my POST criticisng Gordon Brown for appointing Colin Challen MP to the Stern Committee, thereby freeing up Challen's seat for Brown's crony Ed Balls. Danny argues...

I must say I am baffled by this response. The moment Challen announced
he was standing down it was obvious he'd been offered something, and membership
of a climate change panel is hardly a huge inducement. This is just
politics and there's nothing wrong with it at all. It's ridiculous for Tories to
pretend that they wouldn't do such things in office.

So that's alright then. This line of argument debases politics. I am quite shocked to see Danny take this line. I wrote in his comments: "Your response illustrates why people have such a low regard for politicians. If this is considered the "norm" then it is going to take a new generation to clean up the system. The fact that all parties have been known to do such things does not make it right."

So who do you Fink is right?

UPDATE: Danny has responded with a post titled THE BLOG SPAT IS ON. He says:

Iain suggests that Gordon Brown's behaviour and my cynical acceptance of it
is the sort of thing that puts people off politics. Let me put an alternative
point - blowing up trivial and perfectly sensible political moves into
pseudo-scandals and going on about them is what puts people off politics.

With that sort of logic the Opposition parties should just let the government get away with any example of sleaze and say "oh, don't worry old boy, we don't mind because we'll be just as unethical as you." Surely we need to get away from this sort of thinking?

UPDATE: This whole saga will be covered by David Grossman on Newsnight tonight, according to Ellee Seymour. She knows these things.