Lobbyists At The Gates

You ready? The lobbyists are striking back nationally against the push for ethics reform. Nary a disparaging word is said by conservative "reformers" against the private interests pushing and pulling their way to the pork barrel. So, lobbyists are set to organize to continue to waltz right up through the pecking line of privilege.

At the national level, special interest business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and others are mustering forces. Meanwhile, they are loading up their big guns with minimizing logic:

Our big issue right now is that we're not sure you can say the system is broken.

¿Qué dijiste? Excuse me? Not broken?

Does that show you how out-of-touch the lobbyists are? Well, how about this little pearl of denial:

Each lawmaker's personal integrity determines whether unethical lobbyists are able to corrupt government.

I guess the idea of a "two-way-street" for lobbyists only counts with special favors. God forbid that these lobbyist groups take some sort of hard line with the unethical members of their community and use a little peer pressure to keep lobbyists ethical. But they're spending too much time and energy working over our elected officials to work on their own character flaws.