If you want to know how things really get done in Washington — or don't get done, depending on the desires of America's corporate executives — all you have to do is read a couple of paragraphs in a January 23 story in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Reporter Joe DiStefano quotes a vice president at APCO Worldwide — one of DC's most powerful and influential PR firms — in response to questions about my book, Deadly Spin. Throughout the book, I disclose the previously secretive work APCO did for the health insurance industry to manipulate public opinion on health care reform, in part by trying to scare people away from a movie, Michael Moore's 2007 documentary "Sicko".

The surprising gem in the Inquirer piece was that APCO VP Bill Pierce essentially agreed with me. He acknowledged that interest-funded pressure groups "are all over the place" in Washington. "That's how everybody exists here," Pierce said.

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