974 MILLION DOLLARS: Think about it, reflect for a moment. The Koch brothers recently tied up 26 millions of their own dollars to buy influence as intimate, as murderous as a coal-choked river — how’s that for the most fabulous deal yet… The Kochs, in just one of their deals, barely nicked one of their fraternally-shared billions of dollars, like buffing out a little scratch in the paint-job, a real deal.

SORRY, I just can’t help it — they keep coming back on me — the numbers, the (precisely) sheer numbers get to one. The sheer numbers that have all been there from exactly the start. One keeps remembering numbers. The Keating 5, for instance. What did Keating pay out — some thousands, and bought himself 5 congressmen, no one of them getting as much as 30 thousands of dollars. What? Cranston got 26, Riegle got 20*. Even Glenn didn’t get more than 25 thousands. Barely tied up a young hundred thousand. Bought five at the auction, hardly a dent showing. Keating to Kochs — nice progression there, real nice. From numero uno, and, inexorably, on —

* Or, the other way around.