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After a congressional career of remarkable length and power, David Obey can take satisfaction in the federal money he brought home, the sweeping laws he helped pass and the influence he achieved.

But even on his way out the door, he freely vents his frustrations and fatigue.

"I love this place. I love the job. When I went through my papers I was astounded to recall all of the fights that we were in and all of the things we got done," he said in a long interview near the end of his 41 years in the House of Representatives.

Yet much about politics today - about the role of media and money, about the culture of politics and Congress - attracts his outspoken and unflagging disdain.

As a result, his departure has a kind of "to-hell-with-it" quality (the words are his) that is vintage Obey. He reached the pinnacle of Washington power as the House appropriations chair, helped win historic legislative victories (the health care law tops the list), but in a deteriorating political climate for Democrats decided not to run again and leaves office as his party leaves power in the House.

"The mood of the country was . . . 'Don't bother me with the facts.' And I just got sick of banging my head against the wall, trying to explain to people why TARP was necessary, why the stimulus was necessary and why the health care bill was the right thing to do," says Obey, 72, about his decision to retire.

"The conditions were not present this time around to have a conversation with people about anything, because people were just so damn frustrated and so scared about the economy that you couldn't talk common sense to people.

"And my reaction was, 'Why the hell do I need this anymore?' "

Obey's last official day in Congress, where he has served since 1969, will be Wednesday. The Journal Sentinel sat down with Obey for more than an hour in mid-December.

Here are excerpts from that interview - the parting thoughts of a Wausau Democrat and national political figure who served under eight presidents:

On his role in bringing federal money to his northern Wisconsin district:

"I've made a hell of a difference in terms of what's come into that district. People will never know about that. I think they've come to take for granted the stuff I brought in . . . Some of the companies (in his district) said, 'Now let me get this straight. When you're gone, how are we going to get these grants?' I said, 'You're not.' I think it's going to be a shock to people."

On the role of money, which he calls the biggest change in politics during his long career:

"In this place, money is poured in against you by all kinds of special interests who are pissed off with decisions that you've made. And the money that comes at us is masked . . . The Supreme Court has now made it possible for corporations to buy and own the Congress of the United States by contributing whatever the hell they want to the political campaign fights, and they do it anonymously. So the system is damn near destroyed."

On how organized groups on the right and left influence Congress:

"(Years ago) you'd actually be legislating and working things out with the people on the other side. Now because of the nationalized pressures that come to bear, you've got Moveon.org on one side and then on the other side you've got (conservative activist) Grover Norquist and his people . . . they stiffen the resistance of people in the system to work with each other. That kills you . . . When I came here most of the problem was on the left, with the anti-war types . . . about a third (of them) hated the war so much, hated (Lyndon) Johnson, hated (Speaker John) McCormack, even if you agreed with them on the subject, if you had different ideas about how to go about it, you were 'morally defective' . . . It goes in cycles, and right now it's the right wing that destroys the ability of people to sit down and work (together) for the most part."

On the newspaper industry and coverage of Congress:

"Today what have you got? Today Gannett runs the world in my district and they have shrunk and shrunk so badly . . . it is very seldom they will run stories explaining what their representatives are doing on a day-to-day basis legislatively. They will cover us in the main only as politicians."

On 24-hour cable news:

"It's so segmented, if you're liberal, you watch Rachel Maddow. If you're conservative, you watch Fox, and if you don't know what the hell you think, you watch CNN . . . You never hear people who differ from your own views . . . Your own views are never challenged. Everybody gets comfortable in their own windows."

On economic fairness:

"We're right back where we were in 1929, a split-level society with the very wealthy just gathering obscene amounts of cash and everybody else is struggling to make their car payments. The right wing will cry about, 'Oh, those damn Democrats, they're redistributionists.' Like hell. We've had income redistribution for the last 30 years and it's all gone up the income scale . . . That's been our biggest collective failure over the past generation to change that. It isn't just a matter of equity. It's a matter of economic survival."

On TARP:

"TARP was proposed by George Bush - reluctantly. He was looking down the gun barrel of a world economy that was about to explode. We gave him over $700 billion in authority to stabilize Wall Street. Not because we loved Wall Street. I hated Wall Street! I hated what those bastards did to turn banks into casinos . . . We didn't bail them out because we wanted to. We bailed them out because if you didn't, the whole damned economy was going to go down the drain . . . I thought it was an act of high statesmanship for George Bush to overcome his own ideology and actually get behind it just as it was for McCain and Obama to do the same blessed thing."

On the stimulus, which he said should have been bigger:

"It was obvious we were going to get belted by politics from the get go. And the problem was complicated by the fact the Obama administration never effectively explained to people why it was necessary to do short-term deficit financing . . . In addition to wanting it larger, I didn't want it all focused in 18 months. I was convinced the recession was going to last a lot longer than that. Why? Because recessions that are based in the financial sector are a hell of a lot different than recessions that come simply because of a temporary collapse in demand. So we wind up just sucking air."

On health care:

"Obama is a transformational president, if only because of what he did on health care. People will argue about it. But that fact is there are 30 million people who are going to have coverage who didn't before. And the insurance companies ain't going to be in the driver's seat."

On the health care debate:

"The problem we had was the Senate fiddled around with it for eight months . . . so we didn't have a product to sell until the end of the process. So meanwhile, Republicans had eight months to lie about what the hell was in that package . . . We're still beating down myths about death panels and all of that crap. And you've still got liberals whining about the fact that, 'Oh! We didn't get a public option!' Well I wanted a public option, but I also wanted to play center field for the Chicago Cubs, and sometimes things don't turn out."

On President Obama:

"I think he's done amazingly well substantively, but politically I think they've got a lot to learn."

On what he won't miss about Congress:

"Not having to beg people every day to cast tough votes . . . Every damn vote that occurs on the floor is a gotcha vote. And so if one of these freshmen from one of these marginal districts - every time you ask them to vote for something they're putting their job at risk because every goddamn vote is going to be demagogued and lied about in a 30-second spot . . . Life has got to be better than that."

On the U.S. Senate and filibuster rules, which require 60 votes out of 100 to advance contested legislation:

"Senators tell me, 'Obey, keep your damn nose out of our business.' Well by God, week after week they screw up what we're trying to do because only in the United States Senate, if you get a majority, do you lose. I just got a bellyful of explaining those rules to people. So now I'll participate when I want to, on whatever terms I want to, and the rest of it, to hell with it."