One might have expected that Google, always a fast developer, would go from political naivete to over-confidence in just two years. The recruitment of a dozen lobbyists and other professionals, including veterans of both Bush and Clinton administrations, is a smart move. As is the appointment of three outside lobby and law firms, the Podesta Group, King & Spalding and BHFS. Google has realized — more rapidly than Microsoft, judges the Washington Post — that influence in DC is valuable, and comes cheap. But the search engine powerhouse should be careful. Microsoft's recent concession, on the way its Vista operating system handles desktop search, looks on the surface like a victory for Google's lobbyists. But the Redmond software company is not the terrifying ogre it once was: Google, if it flexes its political muscles too showily, risks drawing attention to its own market power.