The protected class

Despite the fact that much of it is just a clip-show of years of David Brooks pop sociology, David Brooks' New York Times column today is getting at a serious issue (here's a map of Washington DC which shows the oft-referred Ward 3). There is one group of people which has emerged unscathed and possibly even better off from the global economic crisis: the upper tier of the policymaking apparatus, meaning not the politicians themselves (who at least can be dumped in an election and who do face career risk), but the operators below them who do the actual mechanics of debating, setting, and implementing the policy framework. The same policy framework that accommodated the excesses that has led to the mess we're in. And yet these people now get to direct us all out of it.