We are proud once again to announce yet another in our series of groundbreaking exclusive interviews at bobcrespo.com, this time with Satan’s own lobbyist, Ernest Hathaway. That’s right folks, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Ole’ Scratch himself! We were invited to Mr. Hathaway’s palatial suite of offices on K Street in the nation’s capitol. The name on the door says “Hathaway & Associates” and you sort of wonder who are some of the associates, but the place is as normal and orderly as any upscale corporate suite, and soon you are escorted by an attractive, efficient receptionist into Mr. Hathaway’s plush corner office. Ernest Hathaway is every inch the successful lobbyist. A former 2-term Congressman, tall, athletic, and rugged-looking, with just a touch of gray at the temples contrasting his subtly tanned face, he has an engaging smile, a firm handshake and a file cabinet full of dirty little secrets and compromising photographs. Ernest Hathaway is a very wealthy man.
Bobcrespo.com: Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Hathaway.
Earnest Hathaway: Sit down, Bob, and please, call me Ernest!
BC: Really? Well then, call me enthusiastic!
EH: What?
BC: Nothing… shall we start by explaining to our readers just how it is you came to be Satan’s lobbyist in Washington?
EH: Certainly. Hathaway & Associates became the success we are not by representing the easy clients, any fool can plead a case for the friggin’ Boy Scouts or the American Cancer Society! You want to prove your salt in this biz, you need to take on what we call the “Special Challenge” clients. Does the name Idi Amin ring a bell? Uganda, late 70’s? The first guy to let the other psychotic leaders in Africa know that the world hates genocide except when practiced on brown people by other brown people, giving them a pass when they pull out the “Tribal Card,” so fire away? That Idi Amin? Well, let me tell you something; the Tribal Card was my idea! You’d think the rest of those murderous psychos in Nigeria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Rwanda and all those other places all over the world ever paid me royalties when they got a pass for slaughtering everyone in sight with their Tribal Cards? Not even a thank-you note, the rotten ingrates. I’ll remember that when they come looking for someone to make them look like St. Augustine when their time comes…
BC: So, Idi Amin put Hathaway & Associates on the map, so to speak?
EH: Bingo! I made my bones repping Idi in DC, straight out my apprenticeship, no less! That let everyone on K Street know there’s a new gunslinger in town. I was a kid then, not yet 30, full of piss an vinegar… ah, those were the days…
BC: Your apprenticeship, sir?
EH: What would you call 4 years in Congress? I was one of those Boy Wonder Congressmen who pop up from time to time, then sort of fade away from public consciousness after 2 or 3 terms. We call it paying our dues around here, sort of an unpaid apprenticeship. There’s a lot of us in the biz and, being a quick learner, I bailed after 2 terms.
BC: Unpaid? But a Congressman’s pay is $174,000 a year!
EH:Tell me about it! I call them The Mother Theresa Years. Didn’t own a single Rembrandt back then!
BC: Your sacrifice is inspiring…
EH: Never let it be said Ernest Hathaway didn’t come up the hard way!
BC: Didn’t it bother you representing Idi Amin, who’s nickname was “The Butcher of Uganda?”
EH: Before you get on your high horse, Bobcrespo.com, ask yourself why no one complains about criminals getting diligent representation in our courts from their attorneys, who are obligated to do their utmost to plead their case!
BC: Well, because they’re attorneys in a court of law upholding our sacred of notion “Innocent until proven guy” and not paid fixers using their insider status to influence the government to act against its own people’s interests, maybe?
EH: Hah! We are no different from lawyers! We represent people who have been accused in the court of popular opinion, all of whom are painted as guilty! People are just jealous that I managed to wrangle a deal for old Idi to live out his senior years in luxurious safety in Saudi Arabia and die an old man in his bed.
BC: And if Mr. Butcher of Kenya thought your services were too expensive?
EH: Then Mr. Amin’s story has a less than happy ending for him, that’s what, and he knew it! Not every prospective client is willing to go the extra yard to meet our fees, the highest on K Street. You can bet your sweet ass that Manuel Noriega has had a lot of time on his hands to reflect on the wisdom of bouncing his check to us!
BC: I’m beginning to see why Satan contacted your firm…. Who were some of your other clients? Were they all “Special Challenge” clients?
EH: Hell, yeah! Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, now there was a challenge, but he’s another cutthroat who lived to be 91 and never went to the slammer or, worse, fell into the hands of the kind of guys that used to work for him. Unfortunately for me, they worked in teams that were code named the fairly easily-decipherable: “Pinochet’s Death Squads.” That sort of put a lot of extra work on his case, right from Jump Street. Without Hathaway & Associates pulling some strings in the State Department, he’s toast back in the 90s!
BC: And that kind of influence costs big money, I’m guessing…
EH: It don’t come in a can, I’ll tell you that! Don’t worry about Augie Pincochet’s wallet though, he stole billions!
BC: Augie? Sounds like you 2 were friends!
EH: We were very good friends, and I learned a lot from the man. Pinochet wasn’t a bad guy once you got past that whole “death squad” thing.
BC: Yeah, those “he ran a bunch of death squads named after himself” labels are sort of hard to shake…
EH: We have a saying in this business – “One man’s mass murderer is another man’s patriot! ”
BC: I see. So, how long have you been repping Lucifer?
EH: Going on 15 years now.
BC: And exactly why did the Devil feel he needed a lobbyist all of sudden? Seems there’s no shortage of people doing his work for nothing for about, oh, I don’t know… forever!
EH: All well and good, but why rely on amateurs when you a can afford the best to really get your programs off the ground? I assure you, Lucifer hires advocates to influence every world government, not just the good old U-S of A! The price is just a lot steeper here in D.C., but the Devil’s got very deep pockets.
BC: So you’re not his first lobbyist then? Did you have to sell him your soul to get his account?
EH: I may have been born at night but it wasn’t last night! You better believe he tried, though, and you should have seen the small print he proposed, claiming my soul on my 65th birthday, giving him dibs on my first-born, that sort of thing! Just wicked! Well, I guess wicked’s a given with him, but when I called him on the small print, he knew I was his man. I’ve been repping Satan on Capitol Hill ever since.
BC: How do you further your client’s agenda when your client is not a corporation or an organization, but the Devil himself?
EH: Oh, there’s a thousand ways to further the cause of evil as a lobbyist. I worked mostly for for murderous tyrants and rogue global conglomerates even before I met the Devil. Hello-o! I thought I knew them all, but I have to admit, the Devil’s taught me some new wrinkles! Long experience, I’m guessing. How about getting people to argue in favor of bisecting America with an unnecessary, poisonous pipeline? In a sane world no one would even propose such absurdity, never mind make it a celebrated public debate! That was our work, thank you very much!
BC: But the president put the kibosh on that thing!
EH: Of course he did! Anyone with a shred of decency and brains would, I mean just think of the folly, the pure mendacity of this crazy idea, but that’s beside the point. Hathaway & Associates, at our client’s behest, found a way to make people love an idiotic idea and attack the normal people who see no reason for it like rabid dogs! He’s in the mayhem business, you see. Who do you think got Charlie Rangel elected again and again? Or that drunken crybaby Boehner? They didn’t elect themselves, Bob! Reality TV was Beelzebub’s idea too. If you think the Kardashians made themselves famous, guess again. Being the Devil’s Advocate is a full time job, my friend!
BC: So, the Devil is your only client these days?
EH: I never said that. Let’s just say he’s my most high profile account, and when you’ve got Old Nick himself on board, the slime buckets come out of the woodwork waving multimillion dollar checks in your face, begging you to sign up. After word got out about Hathaway & Associates work planting all those murderous psychos in the religious right’s political wing on behalf of Lucifer, we had to rent an additional 2 floors of office space and hire scores more fixers and spinners, plus support staff. Spreading evil is a business here on K Street, and business is booming!
BC: Well, I guess at least that’s one segment of the economy that’s recovering…
EH: And if we here on K Street have anything to say about it, it will stay that way! The worse things are or everyone else, the better they are for lobbyists and their clients.
BC: I sort of suspected that…
EH: Believe it! How’s your 40K plan doing these days? I’m betting it’s in the crapper.
BC: You mean the worldwide Financial Collapse of 2008 was your work?
EH: You give me too much credit, but I’ll take it. Hell, who am I kidding, I’l take anything that’s not nailed down whether I need it or not, just to take it, know what I mean? No? Well, that explains your Men’s Warehouse wardrobe… let’s just say that it was a concerted effort by a lot of high priced talent. The general feeling in the Privileged Community was that way too many people were getting too much of their pie… and well, things had to be done about that.
BC: The Privileged Community? Their pie? I’m not following you….
EH: Boy, Old Nick was right about you, you really are clueless about how the world really works!
BC: The Devil knows who I am? What the….
EH: Relax, the devil knows who everyone is! That’s why he’s the Devil and you’re not! He tells me you’re worthless to him, so don’t lose any sleep over your mortal soul, at least not yet, he’s still working on your sappy ass. All you want to do is love everybody and help people, he tells me, and that sort of thing bugs the crap out of him. Can’t say what he’s got up his sleeve, but a word to the wise, Bobcrespo.com, watch your back! That’s the first and last free advice you’ll ever get from a lobbyist. He’s the one who insisted I grant you this interview, not me. I wouldn’t give you the time of day myself. Nothing personal, pal, but I saw right off the bat you have no money to give me and there’s not much left to take away from you…
BC: You saw that right away? Geez…
EH: I’m a lobbyist, pal! We can smell money like sharks can smell blood in the water from miles away, and, to put this as gently as I can, you’re the unscented variety. Frankly, I don’t know why my client insisted on this interview. He’s got some mysterious motives I find it prudent never to question… but hell, I don’t ask why some of my other clients poison water supplies, murder a big chunk of their own countrymen or steal granny’s pension either! There’s some questions you just don’t ask. Like Vito Corleone said: “It makes no difference to me how a man earns his living.” I’m just hired to help them legitimize their activities so now they are not crimes anymore, and make them look like saints to some fools in the process. No one ever said it’s an easy job.
BC: That must take an incredible about of skill and smarts!
EH: Like they say, that’s why I take the big money…
BC: I think they say “make” the big money…
EH: Have it your way…
BC: I’m guessing it never occurred to you to apply your impressive skills towards doing good and helping other people…
EH: Not for one second. Why, is there any money in that?
BC: Never mind. Let me ask you who are your contacts in the government and how you go about convincing them to undermine the country to help your clients?
EH: You can ask all you want, but I’m not betraying my accomplices for free!
BC: But you would if the money was right?
EH: In a flash! What is it you’re not getting about the term “lobbyist,” Bob?
BC: I’m getting it, I’m getting it… How about your methods, or is that a secret too?
EH: I hardly think I’ll be giving away any trade secrets describing bribery and blackmail. When straight bribery doesn’t work we simply resort to our Jedgar Files.
BC: What’s a Jedgar File?
EH: Simply put, compromising information on individuals, named for the undisputed master of the judicious use of incriminating and/or personally comprising dossiers, J. Edgar Hoover, hence the name Jedgar. We make it our business to find out which major players, on both sides of aisle in Congress, in every federal agency and in the Pentagon, which if them enjoys fooling around with hot and cold running girls, or boys, or who has a spouse with a wicked pain killer addiction, maybe they’re nasty drunks themselves, maybe they have a kid or two with some criminal charges hanging over their heads, a huge gambling problem, all sorts of career-ruining, family-shattering stuff. Any time you see a huge scandal break, it’s either someone screwing up in a lobbying firm, not likely at all, or the target of the scandal was foolishly refusing to go with the Privileged Community’s program, and so they get “outed,” so to speak. Does the name “Eliot Spitzer” mean anything to you? How about that gnarly old chicken hawk Larry Craig, Mr. Wide Stance himself?
BC: It occurs to me that he devil has put himself in the company of this “Privileged Community ” you speak about. Why is that?
EH: Don’t confuse Lucifer with Jesus, my friend, hanging around with poor shlubs and performing miracles for free! Ole’ Scratch knows where the good times are, being filthy fucking rich, doing whatever the hell you feel like, whenever the hell you feel like doing it! As far as the Privileged Community, Satan says he’s got even more rewards in store for most of us when we die.
BC: I can well imagine…
EH: Don’t be so certain of your final destination either, Bob! Satan assures me he’s got a nifty little Jedgar file on you too!
BC: I would guess he does… it’s been an interesting battle with him over the years, and he’s come out on top more time than I’d care to admit… but that’s my problem.
EH: So, are we done, here? I believe I’ve satisfied my client’s request.
BC: Just let me recap for my readers here, sir. I think I understand now why Satan uses your services: Even though, by definition, he’s above prosecution and nobody outside of emaciated Goth teens ever learned to love the guy, he needs advocates to create a smokescreen. You promote his work as the opposite of what it is, and sell it to oafish individuals as the greatest thing since ice cream, convincing them at the same time this miracle is being kept from them by another segment of humanity that they need to hate and kill if they want to have a perfect world. Is that about the size of it?
EH: Bingo! That’s lobbying in a nutshell! You ever read any legislation, Bobcrespo.com? And no, I’m not talking about the opening paragraphs, what the law says it’s supposed to be about, but all the riders and “earmarks” attached to a good idea until it becomes something that accomplishes the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to. Retailers call this bait and switch. We call it a day at the office. Legislation, elections, foreign policy, industrial regulations and safeguards, the sanctity of people’s pension funds, all of those things are targets of aggressive manipulation by all my clients, not only Satan. That’s what the Privileged Community does, and that’s how we remain The Privileged Community, but none of us are as active as Lucifer. That SOB is even busier in the mayhem department than Exxon/Mobile, if you can wrap your head around that one!
BC: That is impressive, I suppose, in a super creepy sort of way… can you tell me what name to devil goes by these days?
EH: Sure. Ashton Kutcher, maybe you heard of him? He’s huge on Twitter.
BC: Ashton Kutcher the actor?You’re kidding?
EH: Actor? You’re being kind, and I’m quite serious, Ashton Kutcher is the Anti Christ. One of his more brilliant manifestations, no? Now, if that just about does it, I have an appointment with President Assad of Syria. Good day, sir!
Editor’s note:That went well, as these things go, but as usual I feel that maybe interviews are not my forté. Until next time, this has been another bobcrespo.com exclusive interview.
