Ah, good ol' Brad Molnar - the Montana Republican party's highest ranked statewide officeholder. Now, LiTW has written a bit about the Public Service Commissioner, mainly about Molnar's complete ignorance - or contempt? - for campaign finance law. This is a man who was, after all, accused of soliciting money from the corporations he oversees for campaign literature, then huffed and puffed through the subsequent investigations, including a ludicrous claim that his government email account was private - after using it to solicit work.
Public Service Commissioner Brad Molnar violated state ethics laws by accepting illegal donations and using state office equipment for campaign purposes, a hearings examiner found.
University of Montana professor William Corbett recommended that Commissioner of Political Practices Dennis Unsworth fine Molnar $5,750 and require him to pay for part of the cost of the proceedings against him because Molnar refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, was evasive, attacked the complainant and caused delays in the proceedings.
Such a flagrant misuse of his office and a contempt for his constituency and the general public should, under normal circumstances, lead to a tearful resignation. Of course, we're talking Brad Molnar here. Expect him to blame everyone else.
Ok. Help me out. Are Tiger Woods' indiscretions dalliances? Or, trysts?
Until the story broke about Tiger's tendency to stray, none of us knew much about his private life. Beautiful wife. Check. Son. Check. Pancake house waitress. Whaaaat?
As with Tiger, until recently, we knew very little about Max Baucus' private affairs.
Since, 1974, Max's handlers have carefully developed and airbrushed a squeaky clean image. Yes, he and Ann divorced early on in his career. Weathered that one. Survived a sexual harassment allegation by a former chief of staff. As time has gone along, Max, to some extent like Bill Clinton, evidently has come to believe he could do what he damned well pleases.
Sleeping around on Wanda and having a girlfriend who, until 2009, served as his staff director (in more ways than one) while married and serving in the US Senate is bad enough. But, to nominate his bed partner to be US Attorney in February 2009?
Wait a minute.
Not only bad judgment. It represents arrogance of power at its worst.
Look. Anyone who has been to Washington, DC in recent years and who was invited to the Baucus residence for social functions had to have to concluded that Melodee Haines acted in the capacity as the lady of the house. (Wanda must have been out performing community service for the mulch melee at Johnson's Nursery.)
No one said a word, at least publicly. Last year, there were whispers that something was going on. Do you really believe Max's staff was in the dark? And, that Jim Messina, of all people, didn't know?
L'affaire Baucus is a story that just won't die, despite some claims otherwise by prognosticators.
For starters, in the post of links to the story, I missed editorials from three of Montana's biggest newspapers. The Billings Gazette is surprised at Baucus' judgment. "What was Max Baucus thinking? That his personal relationship with his state director, Melodee Hanes, wouldn't matter when he forwarded her name for consideration as Montana's US attorney?" (The Gazette also provided a handy timeline of the affair.)
The Missoulianexcoriated Baucus for actively suppressing knowledge of his relationship with Hanes during the vetting process of his US attorney nominations:
Eight months ago, when Hanes' name surfaced as one of the nominees for the U.S. attorney's job, the Missoulian asked Sen. Max Baucus' spokesman whether Baucus was involved in a romantic relationship with Hanes - as her ex-husband was alleging - and if so, why Baucus would pursue a course that posed such a clear conflict of interest.
Not only would Baucus not speak directly to the Missoulian, but his then-spokesman, Barrett Kaiser, refused to address the issue and strove to keep any story at all about Hanes' nomination from print. Indeed, the night before the story was to run, Kaiser called the paper and told us that Hanes' nomination had been withdrawn.
With nothing from Baucus on the record, and no way to prove the veracity of Hanes' husband's assertions, the Missoulian couldn't responsibly print the allegations.
(Is it me? Or did they totally drop the ball on this story? What kind of reporter stops investigating a story when the investigated subject refuses to speak about it? They couldn't find anyone else to confirm Baucus' relationship to Hanes? Really?)
On Monday, October 12, a federal grand jury began deliberations on corruption charges involving Kevin Ring. Like everyone else involved with Abramoff's money machine for Republican members of Congress, Kevin dutifully professed his innocence. (You do remember Jack Abramoff, right?)
It seems to have worked out. Earlier today, a US District Court Judge said she will declare a mistrial after the jurors of a grand jury declared themselves deadlocked.
Unless you follow progressive blogs, you may not know who Kevin Ring is. Despite being indicted, his name barely made the mainstream news, sort of, about a year and one-half ago. Kevin was a minion of Jack Abramoff's. And, is a good friend of Dennis Rehberg.
Oh, and Kevin gave Denny $2,000.00 in campaign contributions between June 13, 2002 and March 2003.
That just might have been a pay-off for Rehberg's recommendation to a county commission in eastern Montana contract with Mr. Ring to secure money for a project that was never completed.
But, alas, the burden of proof was not met, again. In fact, the Forbes article referenced above makes an interesting point:
Ring is only the second person implicated in the Abramoff scandal to fight the criminal charges at trial rather than pleading guilty and cutting a deal to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for the possibility of a reduced sentence. The other was David Safavian, the George W. Bush administration's former chief procurement officer, whose convictions were overturned following a trial in 2006. Safavian was convicted again in a retrial and faces sentencing Friday.
This is pathetic. The single largest scandal of the 21st Century and one conviction.
The third class of health-cost proposals, I explained, would push people to use medical savings accounts and hold high-deductible insurance policies: "They'd have more of their own money on the line, and that'd drive them to bargain with you and other surgeons, right?"
He gave me a quizzical look. We tried to imagine the scenario. A cardiologist tells an elderly woman that she needs bypass surgery and has Dr. Dyke see her. They discuss the blockages in her heart, the operation, the risks. And now they're supposed to haggle over the price as if he were selling a rug in a souk? "I'll do three vessels for thirty thousand, but if you take four I'll throw in an extra night in the I.C.U."-that sort of thing? Dyke shook his head. "Who comes up with this stuff?" he asked. "Any plan that relies on the sheep to negotiate with the wolves is doomed to failure."
Which reminds me of a one-act play I wrote on "free-market" health care a while back...
In any case, the particular thought that this article dislodged was related to the rhetoric we constantly hear about executive bonuses for the banking and other industries, where a few corporate executives reap millions in bonuses, oftentimes while manning the wheel of a poorly run venture. Like, say, the banking industry. If executive pay is capped, the industry won't attract the "best and brightest."
But as this article points out, and as was evidenced by the collapse of the nation's financial industry, those that work primarily for financial rewards in their given industry will put financial considerations first.
And that's often not for the best. Have to choose between safe, stable investments with a lower return, or risk the nation's economy on potentially high yielding derivatives? We know what our nation's investment banks chose. Have to choose between inexpensive health care that better addresses your patient's health, or expensive, and oftentimes, ineffectual health care that helps out with your vacation condo's payments? Depends on the kind of ethics you have, and what kind of medical facility you work for.
It's time to face the fact that oftentimes the "best and the brightest" are not motivated primarily by money.
A Montana Senate committee has sidelined a bill that sought standards for how biotech companies test crops for patent infringement, burying the measure after members attended a private dinner also attended by biotech giant Monsanto Co. representatives....
The bill was tabled on a 6-3 vote.
Mission accomplished!
This irks me. It's not just that this whole thing is unseemly -- and it stinks. No, what really irks me is how cheaply bought these Senators are. A dinner? Come on! Even Conrad Burns got a little taste of cash for his votes...
Has anyone been following the ethics scandal involving PSC commissioner Brad Molnar? It really is a doozy.
Here's the official complaint (pdf) lodged by Art Noonan, which alleges that Brad Molnar used $1,450 of funds solicited from private corporations regulated by the PSC to produce brochures promoting a "brownout" event, but which is actually a thinly veiled piece of campaign literature.
The damning details: Molnar received $1,000 from NorthWestern Energy, $1,000 from PPL, and $450 from WalMart and deposited into a personal checking account. The brochure (found in the complaint) features his picture prominently displayed, and attached to the brochures is a sticker that reads, "Brad Molnar, Your Conservation Candidate for Public Service Commission." Molnar continues to distribute the literature even as the brownout is over; there's a convenient line on the brochure that reads, "The brownout may be over. But the tips are still good!"
The majestic grizzly bear, once king of the Western wilderness but threatened with extinction for a third of a century, has roared back in Montana.
The finding, from a $4.8 million, five-year study of grizzly bear DNA described by Republican presidential candidate John McCain as pork barrel spending, could help ease restrictions on oil and gas drilling, logging and other development.
If I were a bettin' man, I'd be sayin' we won't hear that particular earmark bandied about by the Republican presidential nominee as "criminal" anymore, eh? (Hat tip, Dan Savage.)
Pictures are Michele Reinhart's and published with her permission...
This is the pole that identifies where the Montana delegation sat on the floor of the Convention. The pole is anchored by a wide metal base, and there's a laptop and two phones on the table. The phones are used to direct the delegation if we do stuff like hold up signs at the right time, or if we need to stall during roll call or something.
Good story: when Obama finished his speech, we pulled down the pole and ripped off the Montana signs. Ed Tinsley slung it on his shoulder, and led us out of the Convention hall as we sang the Montana state song:
Montana, Montana,
Glory of the West
Of all the states from coast to coast,
You're easily the best.
Montana, Montana,
Where skies are always blue
M-O-N-T-A-N-A,
Montana, I love you.
News came today that the "official overseeing" the PSA ethics complaint against Governor Schweitzer recommended the Good Guv be fined 750 dollars. In UM law professor William Corbett's opinion, the Governor broke the law.
Reactions were swift from bothsides of the ideological spectrum, and both have a point.
On one hand, as Montana Headlines gleefully crows, "The point was whether the governor was wrong -- and the official judgment is that he was." It does, indeed, look like Schweitzer will be fined for breaking a campaign law. Of course Montana Headlines assumes the worst -- that Schweitzer "knew" he broke the law -- that the fine was "symbolic" because of gubernatorial interference, that this is the first little scandal among many that will put the Good and Righteous Roy Brown into the Governor's chair in the fall, etc & co. And of course, there's not a shred of evidence -- or even hint of evidence -- that any of this is true.
That's the funny thing with the Schweitzer antipathy on the right -- it's a weird and obsessive hate oddly hovering in an ideological vacuum. Conservatives seem to hate him because he's Brian Schweitzer, not because of anything significant that he does. Maybe his clever little jabs keep cutting them or something. But if you delve into MH's archives, say, you don't really find much criticism of Brian Schweitzer's policies or beliefs, other than a shot against budget surpluses or all-day kindergarten, neither of which seem really worthy of condemnation.
And what Lamnidae says about the complaint and the fine (and one presumes the law) is also true, that Schweitzer -- an immensely popular figure, nationally -- isn't able to promote the state any more:
So sorry Montana ranchers, you just became bystander casualties in a cheap Montana GOP ploy for political gain. So while Butch Otter is out promoting the Idaho Meth Project, and Dave Freudenthal is lending profile to the Wyoming Energy Council, I suppose Gov. Schweitzer will be forced to close his door.
So true. Seems like the law -- probably enacted with the best of intentions -- handcuffs the governor from executing the promotional aspects of his job.
And Republicans, eager to seize on any advantage they can find, are more than willing to ensure the law is upheld to the letter. Given the party's loose playing with serious laws -- like the Fourth Amendment and strictures against torture -- and legal institutions -- like the Department of Justice -- it's ironic and somewhat annoying to hear them take a strict line on this particular law.
It would appear that Schweitzer may have violated a campaign law. And that his fine -- $700 -- is about right. A symbolic amount that acknowleges the law was broken, but also implies it was broken without malice or intent. Sounds about right to me.
Update:In the comments, former Commissioner of Political Practices, Gordy Higgins, brings up the background of the ethics law involved in this case and discusses the intent of the law and whether it should apply in this case -- all excellent thoughts and an aspect of this case that no one's really addressed yet. What is it we want from this law, and is it being served here?
Imposing a fine on the Governor doesn't do anything to build a foundation of understanding about how public officials should and shouldn't act. The $750 fine represents a short term press opportunity for the Republicans. My hope is that whatever decision is ultimately rendered by Unsworth results in a honest discussion about how best to govern the conduct of public servants. My guess is that it won't.
What you knew: Ted Stevens, indicted! Jerk! Tainted his good family name!
What you didn't know: Stevens had a PAC - Northern Lights PAC - that donated heavily to Republican lawmakers. That PAC was stuffed by VECO executives, the same folks accused of giving illicit donations to Stevens.
Basically, Stevens' cronies were funding campaigns of prominent politicians.
Many of 'em started giving the money away. Exceptions abound, including Stevens' Democratic pal, Daniel Inouye, who's keeping his thirteen grand.
What you're guessing: Dennis Rehberg took ,000 from Northern Lights PAC, and has yet to give the tainted cash away. Oh, I'm sure he will, especially after the news spreads that he's on the VECO teat, just like a whole lot of other GOPers. He'll do the right thing, I'm sure.
Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and one of the chamber's most powerful members, was indicted Tuesday in Washington for failing to disclose more than $250,000 worth of gifts that he received from businessmen who were seeking his help on federal issues and projects.
The Alaska delegation is particularly challenged by ethics. Laura McGann has a quick recap of what our northern neighbors' representatives have been up to.
Matt Stoller on why Senate Democrats defense of Stevens irks him:
The Senate is a damn club. I'm not saying these are bad people, though some of them are, just that they are part of a rotten system that compels them to make immoral choices. They deserve criticism for it, they are the MOST empowered parts of society. The sooner we learn this the sooner we can start to fix it, but if you keep denying that these people are part of a corroded system it won't get better. We're supposed to be smart activists, not blind obedient morons following elitist DC Democrats off a cliff.
"If we are going to help the Cuban people break free of the shackles of communism, then we must permit a flow of people, commerce and ideas," Rehberg said in October 2003.
For almost a year after that, Rehberg continued to vote as he had previously -- to loosen the embargo.
On July 7, 2004, Rehberg voted for an amendment that would have softened new restrictions on the shipment of gift parcels to Cuba. He also voted with embargo opponents on Sept. 21, 2004, for an amendment that would have made it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit family in the country.
But the next day, his vote abruptly shifted.
On Sept. 22, 2004, Rehberg voted the opposite way and opposed the amendment that would have lifted economic embargoes on Cuba.
Gee, now why would Dennis suddenly make an about-face on policy that would have benefitted Montana's agricultural products and also permitted "a flow of people, commerce, and ideas" that would "break the shackles" of a Communist dictatorship?
Several months later, Rehberg's campaign received $1,000 from a pro-embargo group, the U.S. Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee. Since then, the group has given him $10,500.
Surprise!
Why is it that Montana Republicans like the same old, tired out-of-tune waltz on a beat-up trumpet? Rehberg apologists will talk about "nuances" and changing opinions, but given Rehberg's past with flip-flopping on issues for the sake of political expediency, how hard is it to believe he changed his vote for a little extra "boost" to his electoral chances?
Needless to say, I'm going to dig deeper on this one over the next few days...
The latest corruption news comes out of Detroit - its mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was charged for perjury for lying about an affair with a top aide in an investigation over whether Kilpatrick used city security to cover up the affair.
Here's the thing, party affiliation is largely irrelevant in this case. Why? A couple of reasons.
If, say, Kilpatrick's party was well known for touting "character" as a prerequisite for office, claiming that it was the party of personal responsibility and morality, well, that'd be a story! Or if the politician involved touted, say, "family values" and voted against gay rights at every step, then was caught trolling for blow jobs in a public bathroom, well, party affiliation would matter!
Or, say, the corruption in the case were part of a larger pattern that connected to the poltician's party affiliation, well, then affiliation is relevant. Say, oh, I don't know, the party spun off a lobbyist who put relatives of politicians in key positions at industries across the country, demanded that those industries give money only to his party, bribed politicians and their staffers (luxury trips, say?), to enact legislation on behalf of "loyal" clients, well, that would be a story!
Just as revelations that Rudy Giuliani, while mayor of NYC, used taxpayer money to provide security for his trips to Long Island weren't about the political party he belonged to - that particular brand of corruption belonged to Giuliani, not his party - so, too, is Kilpatrick's brand of ethics solely his.
To make hay of that - well, it's a long-standing conservative strategy to attack where you, yourself, are weak. I'll just leave it at that.
You can't make this stuff up! Apparently, the National Republican Congressional Committee has been hit hard by an accounting scandal:
The accounting scandal now haunting the National Republican Congressional Committee was preceded by a series of decisions over the past decade to relax internal financial controls at the committee, according to numerous Republican sources familiar with the NRCC's operations during those years.
Under Virginia Rep. Tom Davis and New York Rep. Thomas Reynolds, who chaired the committee from 1999 until the end of 2006, the NRCC waived rules requiring the executive committee--made up of elected leaders and rank-and-file Republican lawmakers--to sign off on expenditures exceeding $10,000, merged the various department budgets into a single account and rolled back a prohibition on committee staff earning an income from outside companies.
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), a certified public accountant, had pushed for months for an internal audit of the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to GOP members, but the committee's treasurer at the time was reluctant.
Finally, at a recent meeting, the now former NRCC treasurer, Christopher J. Ward, relented, giving Conaway what was supposed to be an official internal audit from 2006. That document was a fake, the GOP members said. Even the letterhead on which it was sent was a forgery.
The NRCC is now conducting an outside audit of their finances; the damage is as yet unknown.
I guess that's what you get when you combine a culture of corruption with anti-regulatory rhetoric, eh?
Arizona Republican Representative, Rick Renzi, was indicted today for conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, and insurance fraud. It's quite the sordid tale actually. Renzi allegedly used his office to compel people to buy land from a friend, who provided Renzi a slice of the takings in exchange. Renzi also figured into the prosecutor purge; the U.S. attorney investigating Renzi, Paul Charlton, was a victim of the Bush administration's infamous prosecutor purge, and the Renzi case was subsequently delayed until after the election.
Renzi's story should serve as a mirror to the recent allegations that surfaced about John McCain.
The real story there isn't about whether McCain was schtupping some hot lobbyist who was half his age (although Wulfgar! has a point about McCain's propensity to mix sex, money, and power) - the real story is the favors he did for her, which are indisputable, and ethically questionable. (He was rebuked by the FCC chairman for interfering with their approval process on behalf of Ms. Iseman's client.) That McCain would use his position to try to wrongly influence government agencies on behalf of friends only seems to continue a pattern of behavior that was most notoriously on display during the Keating Five scandal.
(Interesting side note: as part of his attack on the Times' story, McCain denied ever personally speaking with, or handling the correspondence to the FCC for, Iseman's clients, Paxson or Alcalde & Fay. However, in a 2002 deposition, McCain testified he had, indeed, talked directly to Paxson and knew of the letters to the FCC.)
And that's not all! The Washington Post today published a story on how McCain has tried to dodge the campaign finance system. In short, McCain tried to have his funding both ways - public, if he lost the primary - and private, if he won. How?
It involves a $1 million loan McCain obtained from a Bethesda bank in January. The bank was worried about his ability to repay the loan if he exited the federal financing program and started to lose in the primary race. McCain promised the bank that, if that happened, he would reapply for matching money and offer those as collateral for the loan.
Campaign finance laws ask candidates to make a choice: either you take federal money, in which case you are subject to a number of restrictions, or else you don't take it, in which case you are not. Getting a loan by using the matching funds you have not yet received as collateral is a way of trying to have it both ways: essentially, you get to spend your matching funds now, but because the money did not literally come from the government, you can delay a decision about whether or not to accept the restrictions that go with them until later. If you can leverage the money into enough wins to generate contributions, you can pay back the loan and duck the restrictions; if not, you've lost anyways, so you might as well abide by them. That's exactly what campaign finance laws do not want candidates to be able to do.
What's notable is that John McCain was one of the principal authors behind the very legislation he's now trying to play. Seems he's really not so keen on reform and ethics now, is he?
The book on McCain was that he embraced reform issues because of the humiliation he suffered during the Keating Five scandal, and that he wanted to change the system. Given the Iseman affair and his recent dealings with the FEC, it looks like his reformist rhetoric was all talk, and he's just another player in the GOP's culture of corruption.
The irony is, of course, McCain is the Republican Party's honest man in Congress.
As you can imagine, the frenzy around the New York Times' story on John McCain's too-cozy relationship with a much younger woman telecomm lobbyist is staggering. On your behalf, gentle readers, I have waded in the muck and brought to you the pearls.
Or, as the New York Daily News so ably said, "Get ready for the feeding frenzy, with the press as the sharks and John McCain as the bloody chum."
Big scandal news today out of the New York Times: John McCain had an uncomfortably close, relationship - according to McCain staffers - with lobbyist Vicki Iseman at the same time he was working on her clients' behalf in the Senate commerce committee, of which he was chair:
A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman's clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson.
In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain's staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain's staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.
Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman....
Senator McCain's relationship Iseman was questionable enough so that staffers tried to intervene, limiting her time with McCain and even warning both the Senator and his lobbyist of the impropriety of their relationship.
So...what to think of this report? It's awfully thin, isn't it? Apparently, one of the motivating factors for printing the story was that other publications were chasing it.
Most of the initial reaction to the story in the blogs - as you might imagine - was strictly partisan. From the right, Townhall's Mary Katherine Ham poses a rhetorical question: "What's the Quickest Way to Rally Conservatives 'Round McCain?" (I'll leave you to mull over the irony that McCain is an anathema to "conservatives" when he strives towards ethics reform; and a hero when he's suspected of ethical impropriety.) On the left, Kossak Scout Finch: "Speculation about an affair is one thing, but an intimate relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist? Not smart. Not smart at all."
The best analysis of the night, however, belongs to Josh Marshall:
Well before it was publicly known he was seeing her, then-married New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani provided a police driver and city car for his mistress Judith Nathan, former senior city officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
Let's see - raided funds for the disabled and the indigent to pay for adulterous trysts in the Hamptons, used New York's finest to shuttle his girlfriend around the city? You kind of get the feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg, don't ya?
Ooops! Looks like maybe the gay escort rumors about Senator Lott weren't true. I'm shocked! When would a blog ever publish rumors to incite its readership? Of course, given the behavior of conservative lawmakers, can you blame people for falling for the rumors?
The other rumor - that Lott's quitting to cash in on some sweet lobbying gig - appears to be true:
A near-certain scenario has him teaming up with his son, lobbyist Chester Lott, founder of Lott & Associates. Another, still fluid, idea is partnering with former Louisiana Democratic Sen. John Breaux, who is said to be mulling a departure from the lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs. Breaux did not return calls for comment.
Of a Lott-Breaux partnership, one lobbyist quipped: "The only real question would be whether they would hire Brinks to bring in the money every day."
His son is a lobbyist? That's kind of sleazy, wouldn't you say?
But more important is what Lott's resignation and likely lobbyist career means for the culture of corruption in Congress. In short, Congress is seen as a stepping stone or proving ground for a lucrative lobbyist career!
...it was not so long ago that K Street jobs were considered consolation prizes for loser lawmakers - charity cases, if you will, that leaned on the quiet generosity of grateful lobbyists after being rejected by voters or becoming too aged or controversial to remain on Capitol Hill.
Money changed all that. As the jobs became more lucrative, including million-dollar contracts, lawmakers found it easier to get over any squeamishness about pitching a client's cause to a former colleague. It also moved up the timing of such a career change, from the closing days of a political career to its twilight to, in Lott's case, a peak.
"It's very clear that being able to go and lobby is seen as the upward track," said Meredith McGehee, of the Campaign Legal Center. "In the old days, you would make money and do these things and then maybe get to run for Congress or the Senate. Today, you run for Congress or the Senate and then, if you're really good, you can move up to become a lobbyist."
Congress has become what rightie Ed Morrisey calls the "AAA affiliate of K Street." What would be delicious is if Lott's resignation and attempts to lobby made him such a figure of ill repute that no lobbyist group would hire him...
