Is legislation via the 'wink and nod' finally jumping the shark?

I look at the hilarity of this Gruber stuff and see basically the only defenses to it being either, 'well, everyone knew what we were really doing' or 'we couldn't do what we really wanted, but this was just a means to get there.'

Now we have the utter farce that is Mary Landrieu trying to show all us silly dupes how she really cares for us.

Really, though, nobody is taking either seriously at all, and it's all seems to be a big hilarious pantomime, with everyone all but admitting they are in on the joke.

At some point everyone will realize the pointlessness of it all and just opt to being frank about this stuff, no?

Wishful thinking, perhaps.