The feds are swimming after the wrong fish and letting the big one get away.

Super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s plea bargain last week allows prosecutors to start nabbing the members of Congress they suspect of doing the back-scratcher’ s bidding. At some level, you can appreciate their thinking, as legislators are sworn to uphold the law, not circumvent it.

But Abramoff is actually a bigger player in Washington than many lawmakers. By letting the money-passing, trip-paying double-dealer off without a trial, the government is missing a chance to really change the way business is done in Washington.

An Abramoff trial not only would have provided a reckoning for him and his corrupt ways, it also could have scared straight the lobby culture in which he prospered.

Every trade association and lobbying firm in town would have followed every second of the spectacle. It would have sent shivers down the spines of the city’s estimated 33,000 registered lobbyists.

A good dose of fear would have snapped Washington to attention more than any lobby reform bill.

Like Abramoff, the lobby community has become more powerful than Washington’s governing class. It has become a permanent fixture as the bureaucracy has grown.

Today, many lobbyists are Washington lifers who understand more about their field than some junior legislator from Idaho. And they know it.

They also “get” Washington’s intricacies better than their group’s dues-paying members back in Cincinnati. Or they’re more sophisticated to the capital’s ways than a client paying them big bucks from Newport Beach to secure tax breaks.

What’s more, they know they’ll be around after an administration leaves town. If legislation isn’t going their way, they can try to kill it until the next team arrives, hoping their luck improves.

The permanence can breed an attitude, although most lobbyists are not corrupt. The vast majority don’t play the game in Abramoff’s reckless, brazen way. They don’t pull an Abramoff and pit one client against another or design hidden kickbacks.

In fact, most lobbyists are hard-working, intelligent middle-agers who grew into their jobs. Here’s a typical lobby career track:

Hit Washington in your 20s, go to work for Congressman Brown, spend time in his office becoming expert on a subject and get to know people around D.C. through professional work, social functions or softball games.

After four or five years, you get itchy to move on. If you don’t have deep roots outside Washington – or if you haven’t reached your fill of the town – you probably start scouting for jobs at trade associations.

Or, just as likely, a lobbyist from the Widget Makers of America approaches you about coming to work for the association. He appreciates the value of your knowledge of widget legislation on Capitol Hill.

The pay’s fabulous, too. Once you start considering high-five- or six-figure salaries, it’s hard to turn down the offers – especially if you have no chance of making that kind of money back home.

Next thing you know, you’ve got a good job, a nice house in the suburbs, interesting conferences to attend and, best of all, you’re part of the action. Washington is a town of buzz, buzz, buzz. Being part of it is intoxicating.

Except for one problem: You’ve also become part of a pack that often keeps Washington from doing big things.

Look at the recent debates over Social Security and Medicare. President Bush – and legislators from both parties – wants to retool those programs so their finances don’t melt down once baby boomers retire.

The attempts have failed partly because Washington has so many lobbyists who know how to pick apart a bill.

Whether it’s the AARP, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America or the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare – among many – they want to protect their interests.

So nothing gets done. You may not think that’s bad, but our children and grandchildren will pay wicked payroll taxes to keep programs like this afloat.

True, an Abramoff trial wouldn’t have miraculously fixed Social Security or Medicare. But it could have changed Washington’s culture.

Unfortunately, we have lost a teaching moment.