payoffJim McTague reviews in the latest issue of Barron’s a memoir from a self-described member of Washington’s “Blob.”

Wall Street, the Congress, and not least, the Obama administration all frolic in the same bed. In fact, insiders call this collective group The Blob.

“The Blob moves together,” [author Jeff] Connaughton observes. “Its members are in constant contact by e-mail and phone. They dine, drink, and take vacations together….Indeed, a good way to maximize your family income is to specialize in financial issues and marry someone inside The Blob.”

Connaughton’s book is a muckraking classic, a rueful hoot with terrific pacing. He spares none of the perpetrators, be it former Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, current Attorney General Eric Holder, or President Barack Obama himself.

The author writes as a former participant in the muck, which makes this book a semiconfessional. Unlike other recent insider tomes about Washington’s bailout of Wall Street, The Payoff does not try to portray its author as a hero. Connaughton looks in the mirror and writes, “[A] decade after coming to Washington I had become a highly ambitious Washington insider seeking personal gain while facilitating the status quo. In other words, I had become a professional Democrat, one of thousands who earn a lot of money in the private sector while positioning themselves for better jobs in future Democratic administrations.”