Thursday, September 20, 2007

Forget the Redskins. The exercise of power and influence trumps all else in the local arena, where K Street sometimes holds more sway than either end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Now for another point of view:

It's never a good idea to peddle your influence in Washington. I once tried anyway, only to fail miserably. Life, after all, can be fair.

Late one night at work, the chief executive of my government agency ordered me to join her and a deputy on an important trip to an obscure capital the next morning.

Because I was traveling with a potentate, a political appointee stratospherically higher on the management totem pole than my immediate superior, I got to Reagan National Airport early and was on my best behavior: chatty, witty, chirpy, hyped. The airline ticket agent, though barely awake, appreciated my cheerfulness. She smiled and winked as she handed me a boarding pass. Without using a single frequent-flier mile, I'd snagged an aisle seat in business class, wider and with more leg room than any seat in the economy section. I thanked the ticket agent for the overly generous seat assignment.

Luck, however, eluded my boss and her deputy. They trudged on after most other passengers had boarded and glumly continued past me toward the back of the plane with the toddlers and tour groups. My hardworking boss, I thought, deserved better treatment.

Shortly before the plane pulled away from the gate, I discreetly got the lead flight attendant's attention. My boss, I quietly explained, is a high-level government official who was unfortunately -- perhaps erroneously -- seated in the rear of the plane. Pointing to the vacant seat beside me, I suggested the flight attendant do something to correct the apparent injustice and ensure my boss a "comfortable" journey. At the same time, I observed, my boss and I could get some of the taxpayers' work accomplished on our two-hour flight, a blatant appeal to the attendant's sense of patriotic duty and outrage at government waste.

She nodded and headed to the back of the plane to fetch my boss. Or so I thought. She returned empty-handed and said, "Follow me." Not knowing what to expect, I did.

The lead flight attendant had cleared an aisle seat for me next to my boss and her deputy in the last row of the airplane, behind the engines, across from the only restrooms, inches from the kitchen galley and carts, and among the whining babies, teenage tourists and scruffy backpackers.

As I sat down next to my grumpy boss, the flight attendant winked and smiled.

After a while, I smiled back, grateful she'd anticipated the public scandal and spared me (and the boss) the subpoenas, rounds of congressional testimony and ignominious letter(s) of resignation my little influence-peddling scheme might have wrought.

My business class aisle seat went to a beefy businessman who'd been wedged between giggling teenagers in a middle seat in economy class. Presumably, his ethics were less dubious than my own.

-- Anthony E. Harris, Northwest Washington