Of seven Democrats who participated in the recent "compromise" on the president's federal judge appointments, all are lawyers. That is significantly higher than the proportion of Senate Democrats as a total who are lawyers (66%).

For the Republican compromisers, 57% were lawyers also significantly higher than the overall proportion of Senate Republicans who are lawyers (40%). A notable member of the "Republic Seven" was previously the single, Republican member of the notorious "Keating Five". His crime, for which Democrat lawyer-politicians saved his butt with the other four (the Democratic party at the time controlled the Senate) raised mortgage rates for ordinary Americans for decades. Might he owe the Dems some favor?

The 14 tell us how they think of themselves as preservationists of a more "collegial" Senate. The statistics lead me to believe we should elect only lawyers to assure collegiality (as if that were a worthy goal by itself). Nor are voters so naive as to believe that the much publicized meetings of the 14 this time, have not secretly occurred at other times. In otherwords, the chicanery factor argues as strongly against election of lawyers to the U.S. Senate as the collegial factor (think of collegial as a codeword for public decorum through private extortion) argues for attorney exclusivity. Sooner or later, Americans must come to grips with those who, only one step removed from con-artists, have gradually subverted the formal separation of powers in the three branches of government through lawyerly collegiality.

Our government is dangerously close to de facto rule by one profession (class rule) that is more evil and corrupt than any racketeering influence or corrupt organization. -Vigilis