Harold Ickes Is Still Alive, Speaking

The last anyone heard from Harold Ickes, he was bravely casting aside logic to claim that Hillary Clinton should still win the primaries, for White America. But unlike other washed-up politicos who spend their retirement in rural red states or simply Jail, Ickes is still toodling around Washington. We went to see him!

Ickes spent Wednesday afternoon in a conference room in Georgetown, speaking about politics and the kidney he lost in a scuffle related to his civil rights work. Despite his reputation as a slightly deranged Clinton loyalist, he was actually quite personable with a good deal of insight into the lessons of the collapse of Clinton's health care reform (amongst other theories, they failed to include whiny congresspeople in the drafting of the bill, so it was tossed out of a Democratic-run committee in fit of pique).

He even praised the way Obama has concentrated the decision-making power of federal agencies in the White House while giving Congress say in legislation like the stimulus bill.

But Ickes is still Ickes, and when probed about the denouement of the primary campaign, he was steadfast in his belief that hanging on until the bitter end was the best decision for Clinton. He justified this using the most depressing statement ever, since yesterday:  

"As you get older and older, and your circle of friends gets smaller, it's amazing how easily you can be forgotten, in life, and especially in politics."

When not pontificating in Georgetown, Ickes is running Catalist, a company which creates and analyzes voter databases but is probably not involved with MicroTrends.