Corleone, Barzini, Tattaglia, Cuneo, Stracci:  They were all on Capitol Hill Wednesday, feigning respect toward a Congressional panel that seems unlikely ever to earn anyone’s respect. Tech’s dons will return to their Left Coast aeries when it’s over, secure in the knowledge that their inquisitors will never figure out exactly how Google, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook and AAPL make money, let alone how to bring the omnipotent corporate dirtballs who run those companies to heel. All act with increasing impunity, most recently by brazenly muffling conservative voices ahead of the presidential election.

Bezos, zillionaire owner of the Washington Post, does it the old-fashioned way, with news stories and editorials that would have done Goebbels proud. The others claim to have no political bias.  “It’s just algorithms,” they are wont to testify, lying through their teeth every time they are summoned to Washington.  With only a few rare exceptions, even the Republicans are odiously obeisant. We long to hear just one of them tee up Zuckerberg and let fly: “Tattaglia’s a pimp. He never could’ve out-fought Santino. But I didn’t know until this day that it was Barzini all along.” What a shocker it would be if someone on the Hill actually called a spade a spade. Let’s not hold our breath waiting for The People’s representatives to score a point.