Inside the Beltway

K Street jitters

Lobbyists all along K Street are re-examining their business and personal relationships with members of Congress, what with JackAbramoff’s guilty plea and word that as many as 20 lawmakers could be ensnared in the scandal.

“There will be many sleepless nights on Capitol Hill,” we heard Kenneth Gross, head of the political practice at Skadden Arps in Washington, tell National Public Radio yesterday. “Mr. Abramoff has become a full-fledged member of the prosecution team as a result of this plea agreement.”

As for lobbyists who are concerned about their past contributions to politicians?

“Historically, political contributions have not been treated as bribes,” Mr. Gross stated. “If political contributions are bribes, then you ask for help from that same politician, then you could run a paddy wagon up K Street and clear out the place, because that’s the way business is done in this town, and that doesn’t make a bribe.”

Only in Washington

Nobody is immune to crime in the nation’s capital. Six months after D.C. Police Chief CharlesH. Ramsey’s department-issued Ford Crown Victoria was stolen outside his home, D.C. Council member and former Mayor Marion Barry had a gun held to his head this week by robbers.

So much for being the “man of the people.” The solution?

“It is mind-boggling that in the capital of the free world, where the original Constitution of the United States resides, that the citizens of that city may not exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” says Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Chairman Alan Gottlieb, who blames “Barry and his anti-gun colleagues on the city council” for steadfastly opposing repeal of the gun ban in the District.

That isn’t to say Mr. Barry could ever exercise the Second Amendment. The ex-mayor’s crack-cocaine conviction in 1991 disqualifies him from legally owning a firearm.

Bully, I say

“By age 15, I had sailed to Britain, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. I had hunted jackals on horseback, climbed the Great Pyramid and peered into a volcano. It was fun. ‘Isn’t this bully?’ I exclaimed to my brothers and sisters.”

— Theodore Roosevelt, if you didn’t guess, known by most as “Teddy,” who went on to become the youngest man ever elected president at 42.

Story Continues →