The Corporate Brush-Off

I'll keep an eye out for other mad-as-hell pieces.

Gee, I don't recall this coming up in the debate on lobbying reform:

"Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who was elected House majority leader last week, is renting his Capitol Hill apartment from a veteran lobbyist whose clients have direct stakes in legislation Boehner has co-written and that he has overseen as chairman of the Education and the Workforce Committee," The Washington Post reports.

How 'bout that.

Slate's Emily Bazelon says the Judiciary hearings on surveillance amounted to bupkis:

"No witnesses other than Gonzales. No new details of the National Security Agency spying program that the committee was supposed to be inquiring about. No request for the Justice Department's internal legal memorandums about the legality of the NSA program.

"Given the box Specter constructed for the hearings, what could be learned from them? Actually, the day was pretty instructive, not on the topics of spying or national security, but on the bizarre embrace into which the legislature and the executive have locked themselves since Sept. 11. Congress claims that it wants to exercise its war powers and help set rules for NSA spying -- but in fact it's afraid to, for fear of appearing to undermine the president. And the Bush administration acts like it wants to undo the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- but it fears the public uproar that amending the act would create.

"The fuss over whether Gonzales should testify under oath seemed to be about the possibility, at least in Specter's mind, that the attorney general was about to say something that could get him into trouble for lying. Gonzales had been sworn in when he testified twice before, as have other Department of Justice officials."

There was a striking bit of Bush-slapping at Coretta Scott King's funeral from Jimmy Carter and Rev. Joseph Lowery, and that naturally has touched off a political debate.

"Four American presidents yesterday joined hands and bowed their heads in prayer for civil rights leader Coretta Scott King, but the joyful celebration of her life turned harsh, with one former president and a prominent black preacher bitterly criticizing President Bush for his surveillance of terror suspects," says the Washington Times .

On "Hardball," according to Expose the Left , Kate O'Beirne said that " 'liberals can't seem to be able to keep politics away from funerals' and called Carter what he is, a "southerner with no graciousness.' "

The Anchoress calls it "Wellstoning the King Funeral."