Reasoned Debate sprawls in the well of the Senate like a drunken lobbyist. Dead drunk, to be exact. The body has been riddled by so many sound bites, it looks like flawed logic, the kind that gets nations into wars they cannot win and don't have the moxie to leave when they realize they do more damage than good.

I'm Rhett Oracle, a private eye specializing in purloined premises, hijacked agendas and general obfuscations. My enemies call me names unsuitable to repeat in a family newspaper. My friends don't call me because I'm always hitting them up for spare $20s.

I've been called in to find the killer. Should be an easy job. Evidence lies everywhere — copies of a measure to change U.S. policy in Iraq litter the desks, printed speeches pile at the foot of the podium and the sound bites scatter around the body.

I sift through the sound bites first.

"You cannot fight against the future. Time is on our side." That comes from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., after he shut down debate in the Senate on the Iraq war. I put him at the top of my list of suspects.

I check a second sound bite.

"A free hand for al-Qaida in Iraq makes Iraq less safe. But it also makes America less safe. Our enemy will simply follow us here." The fear factor raised by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. That makes two suspects.

It becomes quickly evident that Reasoned Debate had suffered a slow death as each hollow-tipped sound bite pierced him: "The first thing you do when you are in a hole is stop digging," "This war will not end if we rely on the insight or humility of this president" and "The stakes in this war remain as high today as they were yesterday."

With each sound bite, the list of suspects grows: Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.; Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn.; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

It has all the earmarks of a mass killing in reverse — one victim, multiple perpetrators — and the motive boils down to politics — putting one's chance for re-election ahead of those dying daily in Iraq.

I try to interrogate the suspects, but none is available. The people who serve on the taxpayers' dime already look forward to their August recess, leaving the people's business behind. Their counterparts in Iraq will be doing the same. Too bad the boots on the ground in Iraq don't get the same consideration.

Back on the floor of the Senate, the news media crawl over the scene, doing their postmortems, trampling the evidence, setting the sound bites aside to use in place of the news. Case solved; no arrests; punishment deferred.

That vile taste rises in my mouth as I walk into the night, the taste that comes from wallowing in sleaze and backstabbing and hollow promises.

The streets hum with activity — a couple of gang bangers prowling for rivals, a limo filled with fashionable people heading for a night of swigging apple martinis and a line of heavily armored SUVs carrying some third-rate official to some third-rate diplomatic reception. Where are the people who care enough to make their voices known and have the moxie to speak truth to power?

"I know."

The voice startles me. Had I been thinking out loud? I turn and find an old man dressed in rags, a trash bag filled with tin cans clutched in his hand.

"You know what?"

"Where the people are?"

"I'll bite. Where?"

"Up here." He points to his head. "They retreat here because they fear."

"Fear what?"

"Life. Reality. The effort it takes to get involved. The chance they will be maligned, threatened, ostracized."

I look up at the Capitol Dome, shining in the night, and think of Reasoned Debate's body, still sprawled on the Senate floor. "I hear you."

"Do others?"

I look at his grizzled face. "What's your name?"

"Everyone just calls me Smith. I came to Washington a long ago, when voices of reason could still be heard and legislators could make a difference."

"What happened?"

He shrugs. "Holding office does corrupt, even those who have the best of intentions."

I fold a stick of gum into my mouth because lighting a cigarette in a family newspaper is as impolitic as the names my enemies call me.

"Not much hope then."

"Depends," Smith says, looking down the broad avenue leading to the White House. "What happens when we fail to recognize that intransigence in the face of flawed logic can be more harmful than fear itself?"

I consider that question on the long walk home, not fearful of the answer, but of those in power who can and refuse to do so because they don't have the moxie to admit mistakes that waste lives.

— Richard Larsen is a deputy opinion page editor at The Star. His e-mail address is rlarsen@VenturaCountyStar.com.