Original headlines for today's stories

Two noteworthy stories in today's Washington Post.

First, Boehner Opposes Sweeping Changes In Lobbyist Work. There's not a lot in the article we didn't already know, but I was thinking it might have been titled "Burglar Opposes Sweeping Changes to Door Locks" without too much irony. To repeat: lobbyists are only a symptom of the much larger problem of Republican corruption. Having the guys who broke the rules in the first place propose new rules insults our intelligence.

Second, Handful of Races May Tip Control of Congress. This filled me with a momentary twinge of optimism, but then a cursory reading calmed me down:

Democrats are poised to gain seats in the House and in the Senate for the first time since 2000. The difference between modest gains (a few seats in the Senate and fewer than 10 in the House) and significant gains (half a dozen in the Senate and well more than a dozen in the House) is where the battle for control of Congress will be fought.

So, unlike in countries with fully-realized democracies (like Canada, for example), we aren't really looking at a huge swing in either direction. There is something deeply troubling about a system in which 98% of the legislature is almost completely safe from a serious election challenge. Even the Soviet Union had more turnover.