BOSTON (CBS) - The greed part, I get.

Paul Manafort and his sidekick Rick Gates, says the federal indictment against them, had $75 million parked in offshore accounts. That kind of money can buy a lot of goodies, like the $112,000 audio-video system Manafort had installed in his crib out in the Hamptons, or the $128,000 he dropped in a Beverly Hills clothing store in one day.

And George Papadopolous, the alleged foreign-policy expert who Trump brought into his campaign? He was greedy for fame, according to his plea deal.

He was going to transform US/Russian relations, for better or worse, quite a calling card for a young nobody.

(And who knows? Given the way Putin's oligarch cronies throw around their rubles, maybe Papadopolous had dollar signs in his eyes as well.)

So, I get all that.

What I don't get is the sheer stupidity of these alleged and confessed criminals.

Manafort has a bachelor's and law degree from Georgetown. He was making millions on clients who weren't trying to undermine America and kill our troops. And yet it wasn't enough.

Papadopolous had a good education too. But along the way, it seems no one ever told him it's not a smart idea to lie to the FBI about easily documentable matters.

To paraphrase Dean Wormer from "Animal House," going through life greedy and stupid is not a good look.

And it's especially unattractive when it manifests itself in alleged collusion with a hostile foreign power that means us harm.

You almost want to say – it's not the American Way.

Or, is it?