Or, less crudely put, like Diogenes looking for the last honest man -- and finding only knaves and scoundrels. Same result, same inevitable disappointment.

They're pretty much sleaze personified and -- when not boffing young campaign workers or setting girlfriends up in high-end condos (which they then write off as a business expense) or doing the airport stall two-step -- they're hard at work on behalf of their corporate sugar daddies, which is almost inevitably counter to the interests of the "little people" in their districts.

Rather than using their power to advance the principles this country was supposedly built on, they spend their time stabbing their constituents in the back every time the peoples' needs conflict with those of their Mandarin employers sitting in the boardrooms and executive suites of our corporate city-states.

War for oil? No problem. Relax air quality standards? Where do I sign? Roll back a century of workers' rights? Here's my offshore account number. Keep health care private? No problem; the plebes are even dumb enough to go for that.

Never, ever look to politicians for character, moral leadership, courage, conviction or willingness to put their careers on the line for a principle. There are very few exceptions. Maybe a couple dozen in the House, far fewer in the Senate.

Anyone who expected "change" out of the 111th congress -- just the latest iteration of the bribocracy first let loose by the insane concept of "corporate personhood" and then given its collective larynx through the equally insane 1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling that money equals free speech.

Get private money out of politics and you might stand a chance, little peasant. Until then, just check in periodically with opensecrets.org to find out why your alleged representative consistently fails to represent your interests but has no trouble getting an annual 90+ percent favorable rating out of the latest industry initiative to clear cut or gill net or dam another wild river or strip mine the Black Hills or drill everywhere or defund mass transit or bomb the shit out of civilian populations half a world away...


Now that's representation.


sf


(The blabbermouth formerly known as Warren Pease now writing as Steven Franklin cuz that's kinda like 2/3 of my real name, eh? Close enough for gummint work.)