Don't you just love it when some senator gets up, pounds the dias, and proclaims the fact that "the president isn't above the law..."?

The reality is of course that Senators and Representatives routinely flout the law in every possible way. Drunk driving isn't charged, bribery is defined so narrowly that most cases are in fact "legal", and Senators and their aides pack heat in a town where if you or I were caught carrying a weapon, we'd be jailed for a not inconsiderable amount of time.

Its really little wonder that millionaires and billionaires dispense substantial portions of their wealth to get elected to seemingly innocuous public positions--the pay is terrible, but you can literally do whatever the hell you want.

The criminal investigation involves a Webb aide named Phillip Thompson, who was arrested March 26 for carrying a loaded pistol into the Senate. The story seemed unremarkable at first. The gun reportedly belonged to Webb, who reportedly had given it to Thompson for safekeeping before flying to New Orleans. Thompson apparently put the gun in his briefcase, forgot he had it, drove into D.C., and was busted after walking through an X-ray machine at the entrance to the Russell Senate Office Building. He now faces prosecution, because to bring a gun into D.C. even absent-mindedly is against the law. (My guess is that the judge will end up dispensing a severe tongue-lashing and perhaps a fine; Thompson's already spent 28 hours in jail awaiting arraignment.)

Now its certainly possible to argue that D.C. handgun law is stupid, but that would be besides the point--Senator Webb undoubtedly knows the law and flouts it--because he can.

No one is going to arrest a Senator in D.C. no matter what he does, short of attempting assassination--and maybe not even then.

It is good to be king.