A light-bulb just went on over my head:
So this is how the game is played.
MSNBC and other news outlets yesterday published a leaked memo from a DC lobbying firm. The memo proposed to a Finance industry trade group an $850,000 to provide opposition research, "Social Media Monitoring" and other services as part of a counter-attack against the Occupy movement.
When I heard about this, I thought:
Bleh. Hardly surprising, right?
But I didn't really get a deeper subtext of the memo until I read this piece in The Nation, which identified two of the principals at the lobbying firm:
They are former high-level staffers for House Speaker John Boehner.
And then this paragraph from the memo came back to me:
It shouldn't be surprising that the Democratic party of even President Obama's re-election team would campaign against Wall Street this cycle. However the bigger concern should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies -- and might start running against them too.
Aha! So that's it ...
Two former high-level Boehner staffers are sending out a letter to a Finance industry trade group saying:
"Pay us $850,000 for 60 days of work, or maybe -- who knows -- the Speaker of the House won't look so friendly upon you during the next election cycle. You wouldn't want that, would you?"
So this is how our country slouches toward Bethlehem.
Or maybe this is the way things have always worked.
A little lobbyist bribery here.
A little lobbyist extortion there.
Thank you, Occupy folks, for giving this sluggish, corrupt old beast of government we have a prick of adrenaline. We really needed it. We still need it. This memo gave me another reason to think of why.