The Don and John Show

Chris Casteel of The Oklahoman's Washington bureau passes on the rumor that retiring Senators Don Nickles and John Breaux will set up their own lobbying firm after leaving office, a premise that Nickles, for now anyway, is unwilling to confirm.

Amusingly, a small band of unrepentant Trotskyites described Breaux's retirement as "part of a protracted political process, which amounts to the voluntary surrender of power by the Democratic Party." Were I a Democratic operative, I'd want to slap down this notion, but I probably wouldn't be able to because it would involve being unkind to socialists.