I think that “those that wield power and influence” pick up the trait that they can “do whatever they want without consequence” both from observing those with more power and influence, and from past experience. In general, the more power and influence peole have, the more reprecussions for them become black and white - either they are the fall guy, take all the blame are are eliminated from the political scene, or they are blameless and stay. This pretty much guarentees that everyone with power and influence has never had to suffer reprecussions of bad choices they have made.

As a side note, I am talking about responsiblity to “the public” either by government or NGOs. I am not talking about fallout from inter-organizational politics that doesn’t spill out into the public’s view. Obviously the second kind of reprecussion happens to all people with power and influence, but is definately seperate and arguably drives the behavior linked to the first kind of reprecussions.