Ever wonder what happens to pond scum when it's forced to leave the pond?

The answer, of course, is that it can't leave the pond. And so it goes with disgraced former Senate powerhouse Bob Packwood of Oregon.

Packwood, you'll recall, was forced to resign two years ago when public outrage over his indiscriminate sexual advances toward women transformed him from simply Another Arrogant Asshole On The Hill into a national laughingstock. (Excerpts of his strikingly, ludicrously narcissistic diary were even serialized in The Washington Post.)

What career options remain for a man who, well past retirement age, has already spent decades in the halls of D.C. power, rising to one of the most influential positions in government (chair of the Senate Finance Committee), but who has earned the contempt of virtually every sentient being in America?

Why, stay in D.C. and make shitloads of money helping the rich, of course.

Packwood is now comfortably (and lucratively) employed as a lobbyist--one of over 20,000 or so now retained inside the Beltway. His focus is urging his former Senate colleagues to champion tax breaks for estate taxes--that is, relief for the kids of people who die with more than $600,000 in assets. For the task, he gets paid large sums of money by people who won't miss it very much but would like to accumulate more, even after they die. It's really not too different from what he did at Senate Finance.

Packwood, by all accounts, is more than welcome in the offices of his former Senate-mates, many of whom probably empathize with his fall from power. After all, it as easily could've been them. And with capital gains taxes already slashed in the so-called "compromise" balanced budget bill recently agreed to by our Republican President and the opposing, Republican Congress, more tax relief for the obscenely wealthy probably has a good chance of becoming law.

The entire purpose of the D.C. behemoth these days seems to be to find ways to make the rich richer at everyone else's expense. That's bad enough. But when disgraced figures like Packwood or Brock Adams--or even politicians rejected by their constituents, like Tom Foley--parlay their government "service" into even more lucrative private careers brokering huge favors for the wealthy, it's no wonder so many Americans instinctively hate government.

Without even knowing the details (since corporate media tend to blame everyone except, well, corporations), almost anyone can sense the arrogance and contempt with which we're treated. Bob Packwood should be in a jail, or at least should be paying restitution to the women whose lives he made miserable over the years. Instead, he's still in Washington, D.C., happily reinforced in the belief that he can screw anyone he wants.