Some people spend hours ensconced on their couches enmeshed in the melodramatic meanderings of sordid soap-opera offerings. Others hover above their keyboards surfing sources for unsavory political punditry and picayune policy pronouncements.

But is there really much difference between soap operas and politicking? Consider:

DAYS OF OUR LIES

Interior - Congressional Office - Day

Corn Lobbyist Wheeler Deeler confronts Senator Flip Phlopper in his Washington, D.C., office.

Lobbyist: (emotional) I've given you everything. I embraced your body politic with my assets. I caressed your palm with hush money. I've gotten you high in our corporate jet. Now I catch you with that scrawny little two-faced soybean lobbyist slut!

Senator: (defensive) Wheeler, listen, it didn't mean a thing. I just went to her smoke-filled room for a little cronyism, that's all.

Lobbyist: You were whispering sweet No-Nothings in her earmarks, weren't you? Admit it!

Senator: No, no, we didn't become strange bedfellows.

Lobbyist: I saw you taking civil liberties with her mugwumps.

Senator: I just took her to that Bull Moose party, that's all.

Lobbyist: You're playing both sides of the aisle with us!

Senator: I'll make a mandate with you. I'll sweeten your pot by pushing my big pork project into your backroom deal.

Lobbyist: Well ... I'll have to take a wide stance on that ... .

Senator: (sighs) Then it's agreed. Will you shake my underhand on it?

ONE LOWLIFE TO LIVE

Interior - DC Apartment - Night

Congresswoman Misty Meenors slumps despondently in an overstuffed chair in her lushly appointed taxpayer-funded apartment. Congressional aide Browne Nozer, a Beltway sycophant, hovers nearby.

Congresswoman: (distressed) Bill is dead. It's all over. What am I going to do?

Aide: (solicitously) Who is Bill?

Congresswoman: My beautiful Child-Care Bill. Such a sweet New Deal. Dead and buried. And I tried so hard to help Bill come of age. I nurtured Bill behind closed doors. I held Bill's hand during probes. I massaged Bill's poll. I wrestled Bill through numerous compromising situations.

Aide: There'll be others, Misty. Don't forget Gunnar Banning. He can rescue you from your Blue State of mind.

Congresswoman: Maybe you're right. I've always had a liberal fondness for Gunnar Banning. I'd love to press the flesh with him. Tell him I'm ready to be courted.

GENERAL WHORESPITTLE

Interior - hospital - Surgeon's office

The senator's call girl, Scarlette Hussey, stands weeping before Dr. No, the notorious conservative congressman who, with his cane in his right hand as always, is leaning libertarian.

Hussey: Please, Doctor, you can straight talk express to me. How badly has Senator Lowe Morrals been injured?

Dr. No (frowning): As you know, the senator has just come back from the Class War. We know he was in a Logrolling accident. When he tried to extend his hand across the aisle he became the victim of severe arm-twisting. His public façade has been painfully damaged. There are signs that the Other Side buttonholed him. And I'm very sorry to say this, but I think he was subjected to a form of political torture known as Watergating.

Hussey: Will he be Okay?

Dr. No: About all we can do right now is PAC his boondoggle with a little soft money, grease his palm with graft, and put his name on the big donor list.

Hussey: Will he ever be able to run again? For re-election, I mean.

Dr. No: Well, his ratings are low, his constituency is crashing, and his home district is being systematically gerrymandered. And as you know, his overall constitution has been shredded.

Hussey: Will he be able to return to his malpractice of law?

Dr. No: As you know, his health-care plan was toothless, so he won't be much of a mouthpiece. But maybe a dentist can build him a bridge to nowhere.

Garry Reed is a longtime advocate of the libertarian philosophy of non-coercion that espouses personal autonomy and individual responsibility, civil rights and economic liberty, maximum freedom and minimum government. His website is (http://www.freecannon.com).

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