My brilliant career

Twenty-two years in the newspaper business -- a business that appears to be going out of business:

• Cox Newspapers eliminates its DC bureau.
• Gannett's laying off 2,000.
• Ad revenue down 18% in one quarter.

That's OK, because I've got mad skilz on the Internet. Why, I could become a big-time Web consultant -- if my daddy was a congressman:

Between 2004 and 2007, Rep. Charles Rangel steered nearly $80,000 in campaign cash to an Internet company run by his son -- paying lavishly for a pair of political websites so poorly designed an expert estimated one should have cost no more than $100 to create. . . .
Steven Rangel's design for his father's National Leadership PAC site appears to have been slapped together in a hurry, intermittently updated and never spell-checked. An apologetic note near the top of the site warns readers that the page is undergoing "routine maintenace [sic]" and cautions that "much of our content is currently unavailable." Another button urges visitors to "Give Contribuition [sic]."

If his Nepotism.gov gig falls through, it's not like a congressman's son has to go out and get a real private-sector job or anything:

[H]is dad got him a spot as an investigative counsel on the Energy and Commerce Committee now headed by Henry Waxman.

Hopefully, his investigative skills are better than his spelling and HTML skills.

BTW, if any congressman wants to adopt me, I can throw together a campaign blog in about half an hour -- but that half-hour will cost you $10,000, Dad.

(CORRECTED: Slight mathematical error. If I was good at math, I would have been an engineer or a banker instead of a journalist.)