Corruption: the big picture
from Michael kinsley, op-ed in the WP
Business As Usual: Corrupt: "By the 20th anniversary of their arrival, when an intellectually corrupt Supreme Court ruling gave them complete control of the government at last, the conservatives had lost any stomach for tearing it down. George W. Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' was more like an apology than an ideology. Meanwhile, Tom DeLay -- the real boss in Congress -- openly warned K Street that unless all the choice lobbying jobs went to Republicans, lobbyists could not expect to have any influence with the Republican Congress. This warning would be meaningless, of course, unless the opposite was also true: If you hire Republican lobbyists, you and they will have influence over Congress. And darned if DeLay didn't turn out to be exactly right about this."