About that whole, "pass the bill to see what is in it," statement, you know...these folks are not idiots. I believe they are actors and are portraying the lines and lives of the puppet masters. They likely have a very hard time walking the line between fear through extortion, being bribed into the life we know the love to have (glamour, fame, etc...), and letting their guilt of all that shine through once in a while.

By Pelosi saying that, she really meant it and she doesn't care a whit. Most of what is passed isn't read in entirety by the elected officials and they are not the drafters...they have entire staffs (legions one may say) of those who do all the footwork and we never see these folks. I don't know what the staffers are paid, but I have a sense that their pay, partly, is just the "privilege" of getting to be around these folks. I am sure they are comp'ed a lot of "freebies."

There is so much going on we do not see...it really is much more intriguing than the junk on soap operas and that is why there are so many fiction and nonfiction accounts of what goes on.