How would you describe Evan Bayh? How about "sainted moderate" who is now going to "reap lobbying bucks"?
In the minds of most political journalists, it seems there is no greater virtue than "moderation" or pragmatism. In the past year, the media's two great exemplars of practical-minded centrism have been Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh and Republican Bob Bennett, who both left the Senate last month, to much adulation and lamentation -- and promptly became lobbyists.
Perhaps it's time to reconsider the media's beatification of "moderates," and realize that those who walk down the middle of the road, instead of being daring trailblazers, are often following the easiest path to riches.
The writer says Bayh's and Bennett's "centrism" and "compromise" yielded the very results "that the biggest businesses wanted, and also positioned the senators prefectly for their K Street cashout." That's perhaps a little cynical. But lobbyists exist in such great number because Washington has so much power and to be corrupted, and that power comes from government growth, which is what happens when "centrists" work so hard at getting along.
