Burt Prelutsky, one of my favorite writers, in a column on Townhall.com, starts out talking about fat people and ends up talking about Congress. A couple of University dudes have conducted a study that...

"...suggested that obesity often spreads through a social network, a pattern of contagion usually associated with such diseases as influenza and AIDS."

Instead of transmitting germs, though, these folks infected each other with their perceptions of weight. For example, a man attending a family reunion notices that his brother has gained weight since last Christmas and concludes that it’s okay to be heavy.

Nothing was said about the possibility that the fat brother, noticing that his brother is still slender, might conclude that it's not okay to be heavy and decide to go home and start a regimen of diet and exercise. That is, if the study authors are right, why shouldn't we expect the fat brother to be slender and the slender brother to be fat at the next family reunion?

Prelutsky suggests that this social network thing might be what causes all members of Congress, no matter how different they start out, to eventually resemble one another. He says that:

So far as I’m concerned, contempt of Congress shouldn’t be a crime, it should be an obligation.