I Got A Lot of Lobbying To Do

I am sure that you've read by now about the twin resignations of Senator Trent Lott and Representative Denny Hastert yesterday. These two were once the most powerful Republican slavedrivers on the Hill, cracking the Whip and tightening the sphincters of the Minority Party behind their voting buttons.

So I hear you all out there puzzling, chin in hand, "So what the hell? Why would these powermeisters give up a good thing, with another 415 days left in the Take The Money and Stay The Course Administration?"

As well you might ask.

Well, ol' Trent done messed himseff up purty good a few years ago by singing Happy 100th Birthday to the former Strom Thurmond who ran a segregationist campaign for President way back in 1948. (Lott said this would be a better country if Thurmond had won, implying that Separate But Equal was a good thing.)

That was my Christmas present in December 2002, when Lott was forced to step down as Senate Minority Leader (he had been Majority leader the year before). I was in Pascagoula, Mississipi (Lott's home town) at the time, and held up a sign celebrating Lott's resignation on old Highway 90. Got a lot of nasty looks from gun-racked pickups, I might add, and more than a few obscene gestures. When one of their own is exposed as a blatant racist, the South adopts this persecution complex and I get calls from my relatives telling me that the "lib'ral media is just picking on the South again."

Uh-huh.

Two years later, after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Alabama, the Compassionate Fascist President Arbusto came down to visit the victims. Sorta.

He didn't go to New Orleans, which was being patrolled by Blackwater Private Military Contractors (PMCs) shooting looters on sight.

No, he went to visit his good friend and fellow thief, Trent Lott, down Pascagoula-way on September 2, 2005. Said Georgio Arms-ani, "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." Laughter in Mobile. Tears in New Orleans' 9th Ward.

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Now Denny Hastert was Speaker of the House until those Damn Democrats cleaned his clock in 2006. Oh yeah, and he's under subpoena in the Randy "Duke" Cunningham military pork bribe scandal. He takes money from the NRA and tobacco companies, to say nothing of Enron and Arthur Andersen. And $70K from Jack Abramoff. (Denny says he's donating that money to charity, but the name of that charity has never been revealed...maybe the Former Speakers' Retirement Fund?)

At any rate, why would these two prominent power brokers give up the ghost right before Christmas, with time left in their terms?

Hmmmmm...could it be the new Ethics Law recently passed that says you have to wait two years before you can get through that revolving door that former Congressmen use to come back and lobby for the same companies that got them elected in the first place?

See, if you resign right now, you only have to wait one year, not the 24 months prescribed in the new law.

So you can get out there and start making money a whole year sooner, don'tcha know.

With that in mind, I have composed a song for the occasion, although the melody may be familiar to you from the play Bye Bye Birdie.

Feel free to sing your own version and post it on YouTube.

"I Got A Lot of Lobbying To Do"

(To the tune of "Lot of Livin' To Do")

Trent Lott: There are marks just ripe for some wooin'

And I mean to fleece me a few

Those politicians don't know what they're doin'

I got a lot of lobbyin' to do.

Sizzlin' steaks all ready to taste now

Randy Cunningham yachts all shiny and new

Gotta quit the Senate posthaste now

I got a lot of lobbyin' to do!

Denny Hastert: There are laws on peddling influence

Those laws restrict what Congress can do.

I don't leave now, I'll be squandering affluence

I got a lot of lobbyin' to do.

All: Oh K Street's a ball when you shake down The Hill now

Jack Abramoff, hey you know that it's true.

And Joe Sixpack will pick up the bill now

We'll hide it in his taxes

Blame it on the Evil Axis

I got a lot of lobbyin' to do!