A ghost town called K Street

[seafan]

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Today this lifeless canyon is surely nature's most unnatural place. But once it teemed with life forms. It was known as K Street, and its inhabitants were cunning and resourceful predators _ a species known as "lobbyists."
Back then, K Street was Washington's Factory Row. Behind those glass-and-steel walls were sweatshops where overpaid lawyers worked ungodly hours churning out Washington's only manufactured product: Loopholes.

Then, faster than you could say "Jack Abramoff," Darwinism happened. It began when bright lights were shined up and down K Street. Some claimed the news media shined them, others say federal prosecutors did it first. But the key is that lobbyists are light-sensitive creatures _ as are those in a related phylum known as "congressmen" (see also: congresswomen, senators, presidential aides, Cabinet officials, et al.).

When the bright lights were turned on, K Street's machines were turned off. From inside the inner sancta of K Street's glass-and-steel walls _ from inside the factories, fine restaurants and watering holes _ lobbyists and politicians came running out. They used their upper extremities to cover their faces _ perhaps to shield their eyes from the light, perhaps to shield their identities from your eyes.

Then they were out of sight. Senators and congresspersons fled to their safe harbors on Capitol Hill. They began pumping out press releases proclaiming shock and outrage at the misbehavior of the lobbyists and proposing all sorts of reforms they guaranteed would make it impossible for lobbyists to do again what they'd always done.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8046.shtml

[seafan]

1. The lobbyists have just rented closer to the Capitol. Nothing's changed.

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With one exception: While members of Congress proclaimed newfound zeal to ban the lobbyists from buying or renting them by wining or dining or junketing them to fun-in-the-sun places, they continue to let answer their telephones. Which means congressional Republicans and Democrats can continue their daily ritual: Dialing for dollars.

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But you may be asking: If K Street is now desolate, populated only by tumbling tumbleweeds, who are the senators and congresspersons telephoning for their still-legal shakedown?

Answer: They are calling the same lobbyists they always called. Being cunning and resourceful, the lobbyists figured K Street was giving them a bad name. So they moved on, to a higher-rent street even closer to the Capitol. We haven't found them yet, but the members of Congress _ being equally cunning and resourceful _ have. So the game goes on.

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