Ah, Lileks.

Go read it, it’s all good, but the money quote is this (at least if you hate Puff Daschle like I do):

It’s telling that Daschle finally showed “passion” when he felt the Senate was being attacked. That’s what really galled him. That’s what really made the mask slip. I think that the “attack” on the Senate is one of the least significant events of the last 54 weeks, but that’s what got him steamed. Listening to subsequent speeches from Sen. Boxer and the utterly senile Robert Byrd just confirmed the impression: some of the Senators seem to believe that criticism of the Senate is beyond the pale, because it is THE SENATE, after all.

Amen. As P.J. O’Rourke has famously observed, the Senate seems to have been the way the Founders came up with to keep fatuous blowhards out of private industry. I can’t think of a better place for a Tom Daschle, a Robert Byrd, or a Jim Jeffords. You certainly wouldn’t want them running a Fortune 500 company.