Something about how it kept 100 of our worst idiots out of the private sector. Anyway, Lileks put me in mind of that today when he wrote:
Kerry’s said some amusingly tone-deaf things lately — wanting to be the second Black president, for example. I called it Senatitus in a Newhouse column — a condition characterized by an unnatural belief in the unimpeachability of your every utterance. Twenty years of saying anything in a room full of rich guys who aren’t really listening has to have an effect on one’s ego. No one ever stands up and shouts Balderdash! Poppycock! Fatuous twaddle, sir, and if you persist in this infantile display of specious drivel I shall ask for you to meet me on the field of honor at dawn. No one ever says “Hey, Bobby Byrd. Put a sock in it. Or put a hood over it. Whatever.” This might be why so few presidents have emerged from the Senate lately. Governors have to deal with state legislatures, whose composition ranges from the canny to the truly gruesome; they have to deal with local TV reporters. They have to deal with locals, period. Senators occasionally walk among the mortals, but they often have a hitch in their gait as through their robe snagged while descending Mt. Olympus.
Yep. The Senate of today doesn’t impress me at all.