— Listen Closely!

One of the first things I noticed about people as a youngster was that a person who keeps saying “Liar, liar, liar” all the time did not tell the truth.

I was raised in the Bible Belt, where “liar” was a very big word. New Yorkers could scream obscenities at each other all day long, but in Pontiac, South Carolina, doing that could, and I speak in absolutely literal terms, get you killed.

So some bitter old ladies I knew would call people liars all the time because they could get away with it, and they suspected other people of being regular liars just like they were.

We all know that a every person’s favorite topic is himself. This is just as true of me, the Great Idealist, as it is of anybody else. My obsession is with my ideas and my goals, not with my appearance or my ego, but that is just as much an obsession with me as worrying about a good haircut.

The one subject everybody knows the most about is himself.

And now to the point: the one thing every person talks about all the time, though he doesn’t know it, is himself. This is a very, very practical thing to know.

I always hear people say, “I was listening to a guy who worked in politics for awhile, and he said they’re all a bunch of crooks.”

Well, Bob worked in politics for a considerable period of time, and his impression is entirely different. For example, if you want to know my impression of people who worked on Capitol Hill, what I remember most is that the lights were ablaze at two o’clock in the morning with people who working themselves half to death for things they got not the slightest personal benefit from.

So what is Capitol Hill politics REALLY like? When I tell you about the hard workers and someone else tells you it’s a bunch of leeches and crooks, which one of us is right?

To get the real answer to that question, you have to go back to my original point. I am not really telling you about Capitol Hill, I am talking about something I really am an expert on, a subject I am deeply interested in.

That subject is Robert W. Whitaker.

When the other guy tells you Washington is a bunch of crooks, he is telling you about his real interest, himself.

How would Bob KNOW that the lights were ablaze at 2 am on Capitol Hill? How would Bob KNOW that there were lots of people working those suicidal hours doing work for which they got no personal return?

Now that I mention it, the answer is obvious. I was there at 2 am, and when I needed to talk to somebody who was working on a subject which did not benefit us personally, I picked up the phone and called somebody else, very often someone on the other side, who was also working himself into a nervous breakdown on the same subject.

I am NOT a Real, Tough, Down-to-Business Politico like the ones you listen to on television. I have no idea who can be bribed or what they can be bribed with. I needed money like anybody else. I almost never got talked to by a lobbyist who didn’t make at least twice what I was making.

But any hint of bribery got a quick reply, “Don’t buy yourself a ticket to Atlanta.”

“Atlanta” meant the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, which is where people who tried to bribe the wrong people ended up. And by the wrong people, I mean both the far right like me and the far left.

Moderates were OK. Moderation is by its very nature dishonest, “the PRACTICAL middle-course.”

But NEVER try to bribe a fanatic.

Atlanta Federal Correctional Institute was a VERY nasty place. I worked there awhile.

The people you see on television are all moderates. That’s how they get on television. If you spend your life working your butt off making policy at 2 am, you are NOT spending that same precious time getting into the public eye.

The competition in both these areas, making policy and getting a Big Name, is ferocious. If a man tells you politics is all dirty and all about money, it means he spent all of his time and effort on getting money and learning to deal in dirty tricks.

Those are the people who spend their entire lives becoming Big Names. Those are the people who BECOME Big Names. When they describe politics they are talking about themselves, which is what everybody does.