[Politics]

The Corruption Pitch in Four Easy Sentences.

A blogger or two has been critical of Harry Reid's performance recently on the Newshour. I have no beef with them:

By coming up with this "reform package" we have managed to make people think this is about reforming arcane congressional rules when it is actually about a bribery and protection racket. And that is exactly what the Republicans wanted us to do. After all, if its only a matter of changing a few rules, they can do that themselves and just move along. Reid starts out with all the right rhetoric and then ends up calling for bipartisanship, for heaven's sake.

But then the question is, how do you communicate--very briefly and very pithily--what the problem is? Drawing on my two part posts on corruption, this is what I'd say:

Since they took control in 1994, Republicans have changed the rules about how things operate in Washington and in the process created the largest corrupt political machine in American history. They changed the way the rules of the Congress operate so that now Democrats are excluded from drafting or altering legislation while Senate and House Republicans collude in conference committee to draft law. Democrats are rarely even given the opportunity to review appropriations legislation before a vote. Finally, Republicans have removed laws that keep lobbyists outside the Capitol; now corporate lobbyists work as an arm of the Republican Party, forced to swear loyalty oaths while they funneling money into campaigns and unregulated "issue" ads to help pass laws that in many cases they themselves have written.

Yeah, there are big words there, and references to processes the average American hasn't a clue about. So what. Say it anyway and demand that the press do a little work and explain "conference committes" and "appropriations." Wouldn't actually hurt if people learned that along the way.