The New York Times has gotten hold of emails proving speeches are written by corporate lobbyists. Now if they would only expose how many bills are as well.

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.

Personally I've know this for some time. The public relations techniques of lobbyists are notorious. There are so many lobbyist press kits and white papers, it must look like snow.

Firstly, one sees the same story across over 100 newspapers and TV media, all with the same talking points. Then we have interviews and debates on television, again with the same talking points.

Ever wonder why suddenly the public discourse sounds like a chorus of talking parrots? This is why.

Some classics are:

• Illegals take jobs Americans don't want to do
• Free trade creates jobs and helps our economy
• We don't want to be protectionist
• Americans need more training and education for the jobs of tomorrow

The list is quite long on talking points but this also explains why some of us are having a tough time differentiating between a Democrat controlled government and the Bush economic agenda. The same lobbyists control both parties.

Such a nice find by the New York Times. So beware, when you hear groups talking in such unison, like a bunch of trained parrots, it is because they are trained parrots. All presenting the same high gloss press kits, taking the same marching orders from some special interest or lobbyist group.