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Hopefully this bunch will try a different tactic since their last foray into DC was a dismal failure. Maybe they'll try a different dog and pony show, something that doesn't feature playing cards as vegetable choppers. Maybe a good opening line could feature the current cheat problems with online poker over at Absolute Poker. They can tout the virtues of their newly proposed legislation and how it would help to clean up this sorry mess. Maybe add a line or two about giving online poker room owners an opportunity to 'honest up' their act and embrace a fair deal for players. We all know how much US politicians want an honest deal: after all, they are our upstanding citizen leaders that embrace the good of the whole while self-sacrificing their own personal gain.

Hey, it was a defeated Republican Congress that attached the anti-poker bill to a must-pass port security bill at the eleventh hour before they turned out the lights for the last time. Now we have a Democratic Congress that is determined to make things right. Have you not noticed how aggressively the Democrats are attaching and correcting the issues of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, children's health care, education, collapsed housing market, poverty, stem cell research, abortion, military veterans care...even a memorial to the great Woodstock Music Fest. So where do you think online poker will place on the priority list of a member of Congress? What page of that priority list will online poker be on? Page 1 or 2? Page 23? Page 512? None?

Do I think this week's DC trek will have any impact on online poker? In one word, No! Do I think it will change even one vote...again, No! Do I know something better to do? Maybe.

Two things come to mind. Give the PPA lobbyist duffle bags stuffed full of bricks of Franklins. Have them invade the halls of Congress tossing cash about like Santas throwing candy in a Christmas parade. Remember, graft is about the only logic our illustrious leaders subscribe to. The second thing that comes to mind is 'we the people' take back the power by NOT voting for a single incumbent running for re-election in 2008. Send them all home to spend their remaining years sulking in their mansions.

Oh yeah, there is also another way out of the online poker debacle. Simply reverse engineer the Frist bill. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attached the bill and rammed it through using his political clout combined with the fortitude of a greed driven power broker. Bingo! Online poker is down for the count. We have now empowered a new Senate Majority Leader that claims to be smarter and have even more political moxy, Senator Harry Reid, D-NV. Of course there is a problem; Harry doesn't appear to have the balls to do much of anything. His expertise appears to be cashing the checks without much ability beyond that. Maybe the boys carrying the duffels full of cash should throw a whole bag through Harry's door because that's the kind of lobbying he understands. Shovel enough cash through enough doors and the legalization of online poker is a done deal even though the religious fundamentalist say poker players are all going straight to hell.