LOW-BROW LIVING: Drudge reports on yet another instance of a member of Congress (Norm Dicks D-Wash) taking gifts from a lobbyist. This time it turns out that a 5 day junket down to Miami is enough to get the attention of a House representative. Not quite as classy as Tom Delay stepping out in London, on Jack Abramoff's dollar, for a gala perfomance of The Lion King. One hopes for many things in life, among them perhaps that elected officials not take bribes from special interests. However, knowing the inevitable hollowness such hope carries, would it be too much to care that these officials get something enviable for their votes? Imagine yourself as Tom Delay the exterminator, alternating between boogeyman and sychophant on the orders of party bosses just to ascend that system and be one of those bosses. Yet perhaps after you get there, wouldn't it be nice to enjoy some of the privileges of power? To treat your lawmaking position as a kind of home base from which to explore art, travel, fine dining, to read widely and pass an affable afternoon smoking a pipe and chatting with a few diplomats. Is it too much to hope then that these people not remain the same kind of yahoos who get off on ringing up a big room service bill. Mr. Dicks might have spared himself the trouble of getting elected and just signed up to see a few timeshares if all he wanted was a free trip to Florida.

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