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Two plus two does not equal five, but the best Washington lobbyists are capable of persuading intelligent people 2+2=5 or equally implausible concepts. They are paid $2M and more a year because they are extraordinary persuaders, several of whom have elected Presidents. Their skill is part of the explanation for "the paradox of the honest man." Reporting on the FCC, I became convinced people like Mike Powell and Kevin Martin would throw you out of their office if you offered them a suitcase with $1M. They might have you arrested. Yet their votes for most of their term frequently clashed with their own principles, and rarely differed from how stooges would have voted. Dale Hatfield tells me he never saw anything that even smelled like a bribe in decades at the FCC.

If lobbyists like Cicconi and Tauke merely had to persuade Washington to do reasonable things, they might not be worth the big bucks. In practice, the Bells have enough power that anything reasonable they get without a battle. Their job is to get "unreasonable" concessions, like huge giveaways to several of the most profitable companies in the world.

Of course they buy everyone who is for sale - see SBC's $1M to Bobby Rush's organization, BellSouth's private jets for all friendlies, or the job Congressman Engel has with a Verizon lobbying shop. But most of Congress and the FCC want to do right by the American people.  They want to be corporate-friendly, but need to believe their decisions are actually in the public interest.

Part of how they do it is by dominating the D.C. discussion with an army of superb lobbyists, syncophants, and well meaning fools. One small event two days after I'm writing this has fours folks on the stage who directly or indirectly are paid by AT&T. Will anyone be surprised when they say the government should give AT&T $billions in subsidies and tax credits, to "incentivize" broadband infrastructure? That's part of an emerging campaign by AT&T, massively disingenuous because AT&T back in 1999 promised 100% coverage in 2004-2005. They surely don't need a subsidy.  They failed to meet that plan, after they cut investment in half, and have possibly the worst broadband deployment anywhere in the developed world. Now they want to be paid for that.

They back up their campaign

The really top ones, like Tom Tauke of Verizon, can persuade people of wildly implausible things while themselves not abusing the truth. I've been watching their techniques closely since about 2003, when I realized they were so good they good convince honorable officials to go against their own principles.