Summer, which encourages slacking even among those who need no encouragement, caused us to temporarily neglect a story. Others have neglected the same story, for different reasons.

It is another story of Two Americas, so currently fashionable. One America is populated by citizens who do not feed at the public trough and can spend only money that is rightly theirs. The Other America is peopled by government officials who have access to their money, money they hondle from contributors dedicated to the furtherance of good government and our money. We learn of the misuse of ours only when someone is caught.

So it was that several weeks ago Charles Schumer, the Democrat senior senator from New York, got caught. Even though Schumer has accumulated one of the largest re-election campaign war chests in the history of the world — some $20 million — he got caught billing air flights to campaign fundraising events as official government travel. For 35 such flights, Schumer has now been forced to repay the government approximately $20,000.

Schumer got caught only because the campaign of his Republican opponent, Howard Mills, poured through hundreds of pages of records and then turned the results of that investigation over to The New York Times. While the Mills investigation, according to The Times, overestimated the extent of public fund misuse, Schumer had to return $20,000 for 35 flights.

According to Schumer, the wrongfully charged flights were the result of "accounting errors." Sure they were, the kind of accounting errors that occur when there is no compelling reason for them not to occur. The "accounting errors" occurred in "less than 5 percent" of the total. Well, that’s comforting. What’s 5 percent among friends?

Except Schumer isn’t a friend. When it’s Schumer’s turn to accuse — anyone for anything — which he takes every time he’s near a live camera, there is no 5 percent allowance. There’s no allowance for "accounting errors." There is only the vitriolic distemper of a transparent politician.

The Times described the episode thusly: "It was, if nothing else, a humbling moment for Mr. Schumer…" No, a perp walk might be humbling. In Our America, a trip up the river would be ordered. In Chuck Schumer’s America, it’s merely $20 million minus $20,000. Unless, of course, there are more "accounting errors."