Strings On Their Fingers

It's hard to get far in politics without a collar around your neck and a leash that you can hand to someone in the money.

Sure, you can buy your way into Congress. Pay your own election costs. But once you're in, the efficiency of letting others pay your bills is seductive. Once you're a winner, it pays to get the rhinestone collar and go the royal route.

Fortunately for those who arrived in the last several Congresses with weak leashes, the K-Street lobbying organization turned out to be the pet store that could fulfill this need for leather accessories.

Unfortunately, K-Street may also have turned out to be one side of a vise. The Justice Department and its Abramoff investigation,which has captured in its fish net a large school of Congressmen and Senators, is the other side of the vise. As the sides squeeze closer and closer, the pain in the cojones is leading a number of otherwise honorable men to void the Magna Carta.

Commit a sin and the devil owns your soul. He'll let you sit for now on your immediate gains, but he may ask for a strange vote or two down the road.

And what road is that?