In an email to supporters this week, Pete McCloskey tried to close the book on the Revolt of the Elders.

Now Hastert is leaving, DeLay has left, Ney is in jail, Pombo has been dethroned by Jerry McNerney, and now Doolittle is leaving. The lesson (to be pondered by the new Democrat majority):  “Power indeed corrupts.”

I remember McCloskey’s commentary on those famous words from Lord Acton used above.  He wrote about visiting his Stanford Law School friend John Ehrlichman in prison and hearing Ehrlichman saying that “It took us three-and-a-half years to be corrupted by the power. …”

I already see signs that the flow of corrupting influences has begun to move.  K-Street is hiring Democrats.  Members of Congress resigned at the end of 2007 so that their time in the lobby penalty box is one year shorter.

Maybe, we need a people’s lobby.  There are some who claim that this resides on the internet.  Maybe so, maybe not.