Jeffrey Birnbaum has an excellent piece in today's Washington Post, disecting the increasingly dominant role that interest groups play in setting the agenda in the capitol.

Like it or not, we increasingly live in a stage-managed democracy where highly orchestrated intersts filter our priorities. This groups don't have absolute power, of course. In the nation's capitol, home to 30,000 registered lobbyists, hundreds of politicians, thousands of journalists, and untold numbers of entrenched buerocrats, no one's in charge.

I love that. “No one's in charge” pretty much sums up post-Camelot Washington for me.

Birnbaum has several examples to prove his point. He takes us through the decade and a half of work by the National Federation of Independent Business that helped bring about the end of the estate tax. (It was NFIB that fist used the words “death tax.”) He identifies the pro-life coalition that rocketed the Shciavo case to the front pages, and contrasts is to the Sudan, which involves fewer lobbyists and more people actually starving.

A must read. Check it out.

I finally read the Birnbaum piece, thanks for the tip. Its good. Meg and I are going to the symphony on Saturday night. WAY TOO BUSY at work.....give me a call or e-mail re: whats up. GUY

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