David Hawkings, at Roll Call, writes almost wistfully of what might have been if Tom Daschle, President Obama’s first choice to be secretary of Health and Human Services, had been confirmed by the Senate where he had been majority leader before his constituents in South Dakota voted him out of office, most likely on the grounds that he had come to represent the interests and values of the Beltway more than those of his home state.
Pretty thoughts, indeed. But Daschle couldn’t make it to confirmation, which stalled over some tax issues. So he stuck around Washington where he:
Hawkings’s piece describes, then, the depressingly familiar trajectory of many of those neo-populist Democrats from the prairies (think Dick Gephardt) and would be of only passing interest except for the roll call of former Daschle aides (and, by the way, why do congresspeople need so much help?) who have encysted themselves into the flesh of Washington and government. As Hawkings writes, Daschle had
This is what is meant by the phrases “the political class,” and “the unelected government.” And a tidy description of just how things work in the Imperial City. To the immense satisfaction and enrichment of that same political class.
