Richard Cohen Gets It Half-Right On Public Service

Richard Cohen's editorial in this morning's paper does a good job of exposing the stupidity of criticizing administration figures for the money they made in the private sector. Larry Summers took a $7.9M pay cut to join the administration, and others surely are taking quite a dive too. Well, you say, it is temporary--maybe so, but the President made them sign ethics agreements that forbade them from lobbying the White House for 5 years after their service ends....which clearly puts a bit of a crimp in the "well, I'll earn it back later" plan.

That said, the assault on Reagan's view of government service and patriotism seems a bit out of place. Lots of rich guys joined his administration too--their patriotism is seemingly as worthy as that of rich Democrats, no?