Small Fish

I got it backwards, and as it turned out, the right way. If I had been watching Pappa Joe’s Penn State finally win a triple-overtime contest over Bobby Bowden’s Seminole’s in the Orange Bowl, I would have heard that the trapped miners in West Virginia were rescued.

I assume that good news was relayed from the press booth; everyone likes good news.

But it was wrong, like the first reports always are.

I heard from London in my first tenuous moments of consciousness that all but one of them were dead. When I finally stumbled into the New York Times, they were alive. But of course it was all backwards.

That is the peril of the print media. Their mistakes live on, in print, while the spoken word floats away like bubbles.

I am sorry for the families of the dead, and understanding of the anger and near-riot that broke out at the church when the truth finally emerged. There will be a long investigation, and there will be tons of printed words about it.

There are two other issues that will generate a lot of words. The first one this morning is the continued picking at the scab of the National Security Agency’s surveillance program. This morning the Times claims in a copyrighted story that General Mike Hayden, then the Director of the Agency, acted on his own authority to set up the program.

It appears that the dogs are about to be set loose on the General, who was elevated to be the new Deputy to the Director of National Intelligence. I will be circumspect about that, but the curtain is going up on another edition of the Washington passion play that has certain set lines and meter.

I know, as you do, that there will be endless printed words that we can gnaw on in the months to come, and more leaks and disclosures that will permit the Bad Guys to avoid compromise and capture, more punishment to otherwise good people that will inspire caution and inaction where boldness could save lives.

But I know it is foolish to get in between the hounds of the Press and their quarry of the moment. I am often thankful I am such a small fish, and thus unworthy of being ripped apart in their slavering jaws.

There are others that are being shredded right now, and many more who are nervously sipping their Starbucks downtown. This is going to be spectacular and ugly, maybe the comeuppance for the Republican gloating over the very human and salacious foibles of Mr. Clinton’s second term.

There is something about second terms. Maybe it is just too long, and the temptations of the public trough are too great.

Uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff just cut a deal.

Jack knows everyone in town, an no one is more than one degree of speration away from him. I doubt if he would have crossed the dining room at Signatures, his restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue to let me hand him a card. But I do have the card of his event manager, a remarkably statuesque young woman, purely because I liked the service and the high quality of the food there.

I hope she has found new employment. She was cute, as was everyone that worked there. I was at a ceremony a few weeks ago at the Navy Memorial, which is just across the plaza from the restaurant. There was a sign taped in the window, from a leading accounting firm in town, announcing their holiday party was re-located due to the abrupt closure of the restaurant.

Jack probably needed the money. Reports this morning are that his fine is going to be around $25 million bucks. But hey, that is only money. The pressure point the Feds have is how much jail time Abramoff is going to serve for the golf junkets and the Superbowl tickets and the free lunches he gave the members of Congress in exchange for their help with legislation.

It could be the rest of his adult life, if he doesn’t play ball. I am betting he is going to be an enthusiastic player.

This is not an exclusively Republican scandal, but since they are in power at the moment, the mighty are trembling. The Speaker of the House and the former majority leader of the House are just the first ones to be mentioned. There are going to be a lot more, as the inexorable juggernaut of pressure begins. It will be hard for the influential to distance themselves from Jack, since his tentacles reach far and deep.

Jack’s relations with Republican strategist Grover G. Norquist and Ralph Reed, the former chief of the Christian Coalition, go back to their days together in the Young Republicans.

They are going to get names from jack, and then they will go to the Staffers that arranged things, and they will squeeze them, forcing them to hire their own lawyers, and they will cut deals, because they are just small fish that live check-to-check just like the rest of us.

In the end, some big fish are going to be ruined in the press over free lunches and football games, and watching the powerful try to distance themselves from jack is going to be entertaining. Some knowledgeable observers say this will make Billy Sol Estes and Abscam and the Keating Five look like sideshow affairs.

There will be serious repercussions. The Speaker of the House is reportedly considering new ethics training for lawmakers.

The Democrats will build their mid-term campaigns around the �culture of corruption� circus, and the Press will pile on exuberantly. What could be more entertaining than conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion?

I just feel sorry for the small fish. Working for the government shouldn’t mean having to retain your own attorney.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com

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