The media did their best to neutralize the impact of this 
    pitiful spectacle, with expert commentators on hand to 
    assure us that smart fellows like Chuck Schumer and Joe 
    Biden were only going through the motions for the sake of 
    all that MoveOn.org fund-raising gravy. Don't worry, Ted 
    and Chuck and Pat are way too savvy to believe this junk. 
    Thus democratic politics reaches a new level of circular 
    hell: The spin is that it's only spin.

    As I understand it, with the Jack Abramoff dirty-money 
    stuff, lobby groups give big bucks to politicians to 
    advocate various things which, pre-check-cashing, the 
    politicians may or may not have believed in. But this 
    last week of Senate hearings has been so absurd it may 
    bring the whole system into disrepute: Big-time Democrats 
    are out there dancing for dollars in a cause so obviously 
    non-viable that their media buddies feel obliged to 
    signal that it's merely a charade. Does that satisfy 
    anybody?