It's Good to be the King

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — The 110th Congress opened with the passage of new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets.

But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having lobbyist-financed fun.

-- David D. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Monk is so not surprised by this that I was going to pass by this story, but it is worth keeping for the record. You just cannot separate money from power, just as you presumably cannot separate sex and babes from money and power.

In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), a Presidents’ Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000), parties in South Beach in Miami ($5,000), concerts by the Who or Bob Seger ($2,500 for two seats), and even Broadway shows like “Mary Poppins” and “The Drowsy Chaperone” (also $2,500 for two).

The lobbyists and their employers typically end up paying for the events, but within the new rules.

Instead of picking up the lawmaker’s tab, lobbyists pay a political fund-raising committee set up by the lawmaker. In turn, the committee pays the legislator’s way.

Lobbyists and fund-raisers say such trips are becoming increasingly popular, partly as a quirky consequence of the new ethics rules.

By barring lobbyists from mingling with a lawmaker or his staff for the cost of a steak dinner, the restrictions have stirred new demand for pricier tickets to social fund-raising events.

Lobbyists say that the rules might even increase the volume of contributions flowing to Congress from K Street, where many lobbying firms have their offices.

As far as the sex goes, so long as you stay away from the kiddies, I suppose there is no need to even make a law against it. It's good to be the king!

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It's Good to be the King

♠
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 — The 110th Congress opened with the passage of new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets.

But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having lobbyist-financed fun.

-- David D. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

Monk is so not surprised by this that I was going to pass by this story, but it is worth keeping for the record. You just cannot separate money from power, just as you presumably cannot separate sex and babes from money and power.

In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), a Presidents’ Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000), parties in South Beach in Miami ($5,000), concerts by the Who or Bob Seger ($2,500 for two seats), and even Broadway shows like “Mary Poppins” and “The Drowsy Chaperone” (also $2,500 for two).

The lobbyists and their employers typically end up paying for the events, but within the new rules.

Instead of picking up the lawmaker’s tab, lobbyists pay a political fund-raising committee set up by the lawmaker. In turn, the committee pays the legislator’s way.

Lobbyists and fund-raisers say such trips are becoming increasingly popular, partly as a quirky consequence of the new ethics rules.

By barring lobbyists from mingling with a lawmaker or his staff for the cost of a steak dinner, the restrictions have stirred new demand for pricier tickets to social fund-raising events.

Lobbyists say that the rules might even increase the volume of contributions flowing to Congress from K Street, where many lobbying firms have their offices.

As far as the sex goes, so long as you stay away from the kiddies, I suppose there is no need to even make a law against it. It's good to be the king!

xXx

Falling

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I'll let Frank Rich gives us the latest dose of bad news from Iraq, as he is sort of a Dr. Kevorkian on the sordid affair:

What anyone in Congress with half a brain knows is that the surge was sabotaged before it began. The latest National Intelligence Estimate said as much when it posited that “even if violence is diminished,” Iraq’s “absence of unifying leaders” makes political reconciliation doubtful. Not enough capable Iraqi troops are showing up and, as Gen. Peter Pace told the Senate last week, not enough armored vehicles are available to protect the new American deployments. The State Department can’t recruit enough civilian officials to manage the latest push to turn on Baghdad’s electricity and is engaged in its own sectarian hostilities with the Pentagon. Revealingly enough, the surge’s cheerleaders are already searching for post-Rumsfeld scapegoats. William Kristol attacked the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, for “letting the Joint Chiefs slow-walk the brigades in.”

Ah, Dubya, Dubya, your father gave you the keys to the country and you wrecked it, son. I know that it was supposed to be an easy ride after the balmy Clinton years and after the fall of the Soviet Union, when a stained dress was our biggest problem, but life fucks with us like that sometimes.

(Source: Frank Rich for The New York Times)

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Falling

♠
I'll let Frank Rich gives us the latest dose of bad news from Iraq, as he is sort of a Dr. Kevorkian on the sordid affair:

What anyone in Congress with half a brain knows is that the surge was sabotaged before it began. The latest National Intelligence Estimate said as much when it posited that “even if violence is diminished,” Iraq’s “absence of unifying leaders” makes political reconciliation doubtful. Not enough capable Iraqi troops are showing up and, as Gen. Peter Pace told the Senate last week, not enough armored vehicles are available to protect the new American deployments. The State Department can’t recruit enough civilian officials to manage the latest push to turn on Baghdad’s electricity and is engaged in its own sectarian hostilities with the Pentagon. Revealingly enough, the surge’s cheerleaders are already searching for post-Rumsfeld scapegoats. William Kristol attacked the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, for “letting the Joint Chiefs slow-walk the brigades in.”

Ah, Dubya, Dubya, your father gave you the keys to the country and you wrecked it, son. I know that it was supposed to be an easy ride after the balmy Clinton years and after the fall of the Soviet Union, when a stained dress was our biggest problem, but life fucks with us like that sometimes.

(Source: Frank Rich for The New York Times)

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The Cure

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As part of my 'be kinder to Monk' mood, I am giving all day over to Mr. Mann. Our own middle-aged Hans Castorp could use more of that cure. There is even a slight wintry cast to the day to make it more perfect.

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The Cure

♠
As part of my 'be kinder to Monk' mood, I am giving all day over to Mr. Mann. Our own middle-aged Hans Castorp could use more of that cure. There is even a slight wintry cast to the day to make it more perfect.

xXx

Ronald Reagan: An Unconservative Conservative?

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In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

-- George F. Will for The Washington Post

Mr. Will is an admiring devotee of President Reagan and an apostle of conservatism, and it was interesting to read him writing of how rather unconservative Reagan arguably was.

He relates a new book by John Patrick Diggins that looks too tempting just to pass over. Researching it a bit, I also came across another of his books that has Monk groaning in covetousness from a reading life that is already heavily crowded, "The Rise and Fall of the American Left," a work which was actually first published in 1973. Part of the problem is that I don't know if Monk is up to such dry reading at this stage in his life. I will have to sleep on it.

( Will column )

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Ronald Reagan: An Unconservative Conservative?

♠
In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

-- George F. Will for The Washington Post

Mr. Will is an admiring devotee of President Reagan and an apostle of conservatism, and it was interesting to read him writing of how rather unconservative Reagan arguably was.

He relates a new book by John Patrick Diggins that looks too tempting just to pass over. Researching it a bit, I also came across another of his books that has Monk groaning in covetousness from a reading life that is already heavily crowded, "The Rise and Fall of the American Left," a work which was actually first published in 1973. Part of the problem is that I don't know if Monk is up to such dry reading at this stage in his life. I will have to sleep on it.

( Will column )

xXx

Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Un-Americanism

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Having taken as much notice as we have of the controversy over Dinesh D'Souza and his book, I would feel remiss not to mention this latest critical bomb dropped on D'Souza's head by the conservative Bruce Bawer:

For those who cherish freedom, 9/11 was intensely clarifying. Presumably it, and its aftermath, have been just as clarifying for D’Souza, whose book leaves no doubt whatsoever that he now unequivocally despises freedom—that open homosexuality and female “immodesty” are, in his estimation, so disgusting as to warrant throwing one’s lot in with religious totalitarians. Shortly after The Enemy at Home came out, a blogger recalled that in 2003, commenting in the National Review on the fact that “influential figures” in America’s conservative movement felt “that America has become so decadent that we are ‘slouching towards Gomorrah,’” D’Souza wrote: “If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed.” Well, D’Souza has now made it perfectly clear that he’s one of those critics; and the book he’s written is nothing less than a call for America’s destruction. He is the enemy at home. Treason is the only word for it.

I cannot think of anyone who has sung D'Souza's praises for this book. Even those, such as William Buckley, who have stepped up to defend the man, seem to reject his argument. In our deeply divided country, I find this encouraging. D'Souza's illiberal thesis really is un-American.


(Source: Bruce Bawer for The Stranger)

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Dinesh D'Souza's Illiberal Un-Americanism

♠
Having taken as much notice as we have of the controversy over Dinesh D'Souza and his book, I would feel remiss not to mention this latest critical bomb dropped on D'Souza's head by the conservative Bruce Bawer:

For those who cherish freedom, 9/11 was intensely clarifying. Presumably it, and its aftermath, have been just as clarifying for D’Souza, whose book leaves no doubt whatsoever that he now unequivocally despises freedom—that open homosexuality and female “immodesty” are, in his estimation, so disgusting as to warrant throwing one’s lot in with religious totalitarians. Shortly after The Enemy at Home came out, a blogger recalled that in 2003, commenting in the National Review on the fact that “influential figures” in America’s conservative movement felt “that America has become so decadent that we are ‘slouching towards Gomorrah,’” D’Souza wrote: “If these critics are right, then America should be destroyed.” Well, D’Souza has now made it perfectly clear that he’s one of those critics; and the book he’s written is nothing less than a call for America’s destruction. He is the enemy at home. Treason is the only word for it.

I cannot think of anyone who has sung D'Souza's praises for this book. Even those, such as William Buckley, who have stepped up to defend the man, seem to reject his argument. In our deeply divided country, I find this encouraging. D'Souza's illiberal thesis really is un-American.


(Source: Bruce Bawer for The Stranger)

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