Paging Emperor Nero; bring your fiddle to Washington

From today's Wall St. Journal (subscription required to access link):

"On Aug. 2, the very day the Treasury may begin scraping around for cash to pay its bills, half a dozen lawmakers from both parties are hosting separate fund-raisers at a concert by country crooner Taylor Swift....Not long ago, lawmakers canceled fund-raising events when important votes made such efforts appear in bad taste.

"Not anymore."

And here's a passage from today's Politico's Playbook that describes Speaker Boehner's attempts to cajole his members into rallying behind his proposal (which it appears isn't going to get the requisite partisan support):

"With earmarks gone, leaders have fewer levers. So now members ask for committee assignments and campaign favors. Leaders say they try to stick to the high road: personal appeals, and the argument of “being part of a team that’s doing big things for the country ... moving toward the goal of getting the country back on the right path.”

Wonderful. We're watching watching pirates on a sinking ship trying to divvy up their plunder, except it's our sinking boat the pirates are pretending to pilot.