Head-hunting for Michael Powell: finding great jobs for political losers.

• Author: Wallace-Wells, Benjamin
• Position: 10 Miles Square

This summer has not exactly been Michael K. Powell's shining season. The 39-year-old chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (and son of the secretary of state) had spent much of the last two years pushing a rule change to loosen restrictions on the number of television stations that media conglomerates can own. Powell jammed the change through the commission on a party-line vote with the same cocky assurance that characterizes so many pro-industry Bush initiatives. But he failed to foresee the firestorm of public outrage that ensued. Hundreds of thousands of citizens complained to the FCC. Interest groups from the National Organization for Women to the National Rifle Association demanded a congressional override. Spooked lawmakers complied; the House voted to cancel the change this June by the nearly Soviet margin of 400-21.

All of this inspired a good deal of snark among the Washington media. In the tightly controlled Washington of George W. Bush, where a burnt piece of melba toast would stand a good chance of getting a federal judgeship if Karl Rove willed it, managing to win only 21 Republican votes for a measure with the White House visibly behind it seemed a pretty cut-and-dry case of political malpractice. It had reporters and columnists speculating about whether this would cost Powell his job or, worse, his career.

If history is any guide it probably won't. Washington is a city for second acts. Michael Deaver, Reagan's deputy chief of Staff, hospitalized for depression after he was accused of selling access to lobbyists, rebounded to a vastly successful career as a political strategist. G. Gordon Liddy, the Nixon administration heavy who oversaw the Watergate break-in, earned millions as a lobbyist in the early 1980s before finding an audience on talk radio. And Bob Packwood who resigned from the Senate after the publication of his sexually graphic diaries made him a Capitol laughingstock, turned himself into a well-heeled political consultant.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there's a small industry in D.C. devoted to helping ex-administration officials land lucrative lobbying jobs. To get a sense of Powell's post-government marketability, I paid a visit to a titan of that industry, Nels Olson.

Olson is the managing director of Korn/Ferry International, and...