Senators have secret hideaways

Well, of course we KNEW this in theory. You know...they have limos and Hummers to drive them (I'm talking to YOU, Nancy Pelosi) a block down the street so they won't have to mingle with the commoners. They have private jets to fly them and their entourage around the world; they have their own gyms, transportation systems, cafeterias, BANKS, health insurance (doctors on call 24/7)...so, OF COURSE they all have little hideaways that they don't want YOU, the unwashed masses, to know how much cost or where it is. Because then YOU might knock on their door.

So we have to resort to booing them at public restaurants when they come home. Witness Ben Nelson.

Rightly or wrongly, hideaways carry the image of unseemly privilege paid for by taxpayers. They have famously been used for business beyond the legislative sort, spaces "highly coveted by the powerful, and particularly by the playful," Bobby Baker, an aide to Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, wrote in his book, "Wheeling and Dealing: Confessions of a Capitol Hill Operator."

With three Senate office buildings to house staffs for constituent services — and subways to shuttle senators virtually across the street for votes — no senator can claim to really need a Capitol hideaway.