From Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land':

On the planet Terra the flapper system developed slowly. Time was when any Terran sovereign held public court so that the lowliest might come before him without intermediary. Traces of this persisted long after kings became scarce - an Englishman could "Cry Harold!" (although none did) and the smarter city bosses still left their doors open to any gandy dancer of bindlestiff far into the twentieth century. A remnant of the principle was embalmed in Amendments I and IX of the United States Constitution, although superseded by the Articles of World Federation.

By the time the Champion returned from Mars the principle of access to the sovereign was dead in fact, regardless of the nominal form of government, and the importance of a personage could be told by the layers of flappers cutting him off from the mob. They were known as executive assistants, private secretaries, secretaries to private secretaries, press secretaries, receptionists, appointment clerks, et cetera - but all were "flappers" as each held arbitrary veto over communication from the outside.

These webs of officials resulted in unofficials who flapped the Great Man without permission from official flappers, using social occasions, or back-door access, or unlisted telephone numbers. These unofficials were called: "golfing companion," "kitchen cabinet," "lobbyist," "elder statesman," "fiver-percenter," and so forth. The unofficials grew webs, too, until they were almost as hard to reach as the Great Man, and secondary unofficials sprang up to circumvent the flappers of primary unofficials. With a personage of foremost importance the maze of unofficials was as complex as the official phalanxes surrounding a person merely very important.

^ I wish I could quality comments.

I've felt the same way before. For now though, it works well just for sifts - sifts like this one, in fact!

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by EndAll.