Political apocrypha or how business actually gets done in “Washington”

Someone once told me that you could tell where someone came from, their economic background and their attitudes about life, by how they started a “fish story,” you know, the kind of story the one that got away that was yeah big, no really, it was, bigger than anything we’ve ever seen. It doesn’t matter what the actual content of the story is, they all have that same whiff of apocrypha.

Those from the upper classes and striving middle class folks would start a story of this type with some variation of “Now, I know this is going to sound unbelievable” whereas folks from the lower classes, ones with a more earthy outlook on life, would start their story in the way I’m about to start this one by saying the following: Now, this ain’t no shit. The difference, I suppose, acknowledges both the leap of faith needed to believe what you’re about to hear while simultaneously encouraging you to be engaged with the material. This is one of those stories.

It’s both fair and accurate to say that Lyndon Johnson, who would have turned 100 this year, is nearly 40 years after he left office still one of America’s most controversial presidents. On the one hand Johnson’s “Great Society” programs, like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Head-Start program for kids living in poverty that fed me breakfast the entire time in I was in elementary school, legislated desperately needed social changes in America (of course, depending upon your political bent you could also argue legitimately that they solidified the slate of government “entitlement programs” begin by FDR in the “New Deal” but I digress); on the other hand, Johnson bought heart and soul the line of crap being fed to him by both arch conservatives and by the military-industrial complex and escalated the war in Vietnam directly resulting in the deaths of 58,000+ Americans, an uncounted number of Vietnamese, and an unthinkable number of physically and psychically maimed on both sides all because we were afraid of a Communist block in South East Asia.

Johnson was a typical smoke-filled room politician throughout his entire career. Known for twisting arms and bullying his way to the result he wanted, Johnson was the personal equivalent of a Saffir-Simpson 5. But the thing about Johnson was that he gave as good as he got, he knew the value of street cred long before we had a term for it in the popular lexicon.

Coming off last week’s DNC, I’ve been thinking about Johnson a lot. Talk of reforming “Washington,” and yes, I always hear the air-quotes because I look around when a politician says “Washington is broken” and I think “yeah, but you’re not going to do jack shit about the cronyism in city government and you can’t get my street repaved so shut up,” is fine, well, and good but the reality is that fully 75% of the things Obama talked about in his speech last Thursday are legislative changes that require the cooperation of both houses of Congress.

Now, this ain’t no shit.

Sometime in the late-1950s when he was still a Senator from the great state of Texas Lyndon Johnson, and mind you he was a physically big man at 6′ 3 /12″, walked into a room full of lobbyists and other Democratic Senators, looked around and appraised the assemblage and said, “Everyone in this room owes me a favor and I’m here to collect.”

I know this because Mr. H., who was a family friend and the chief lobbyist for the Milk Marketing Board, was one of the people standing in that room.

Influence is how “Washington” and politics function. Is it how they should function? Absolutely not, but when dealing with a large group of people and the word “should” you’re fighting human nature. Lobbyists treat politicians like they are special and it is human nature to want to feel special, to feel like you matter.

It takes a hugely strong personal will to reject that kind of treatment and, even though in the matter of his infidelity he was an even bigger equivocating scumbag than Bill Clinton was about Monica Lewinsky, John Edwards had it right: this veil gets drawn over people. After they’ve been treated like they are privileged for long enough they start to believe that they deserve, nay are entitled, to be treated as if the rules don’t apply or that little something extra isn’t extra but their due because they work so hard or make such difficult decisions. But they don’t. That’s why members of Congress make $169,300/year but will happily reject an increase in the minimum wage that would raise the salary of someone working for that wage to $15,080/year.

I’m forced to wonder: to whom is Barack Obama beholden, and who can he call on for the return of favors he’s granted? I fear no one and that makes me wonder if that dark cloud on the horizon isn’t potentially eight more devastating years of Republican controlled government after a 1-term Democratic President.