Lobbying

Former presidential aide Michael Deaver’s insistence that he does no more than construct “strategies” for his customers is insulting. A “strategy” means how to write it, how to price it, and whom to take to lunch in order to clinch the contract or influence U.S. policy.

Any public official upon leaving office necessarily carries with him a halo, access, special ties and a vast array of arcane knowledge of the intricacies, inside struggles, personnel and functioning not only of his own former office(s) but also of others with which he has related.

None of this professional paraphernalia can be sloughed off like last year’s cloak; it will necessarily be taken into account and utilized when he, the former official, enters his new career of lobbying. In fact, it will be his principal stock in trade. This is precisely why he takes to lobbying: he wears a halo, has access, and has stored away a vast amount of knowledge available to no one else.

RAYMOND W. WIEDMAN

San Pedro