Hillary Clinton returned to the Senate yesterday, which caused the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank to get a little overwrought:
Two hundred journalists, interns and others awaited her arrival at the carriage entrance outside the Senate chamber yesterday. A Senate official tried to keep order among the cameras, boom microphones and shotgun-wielding cops: “I need media credentials out! I need a space for her!” Greta Van Susteren snapped pictures on a camera phone. Even Vice President Cheney, arriving in a sirens-blaring motorcade for lunch with Republican senators, merited no more than a murmur from the mob awaiting Clinton’s appearance.
“Heads up!” somebody called out. The interns erupted in a cheer as soon as the leg of Clinton’s turquoise pantsuit appeared though the doorway of her Lincoln Town Car.
“Like the Roman triumph,” Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) observed wryly as he watched the scene. Bayh, who admitted that his own return to the Senate went “largely unnoticed” after he abandoned plans to run for president, said of Clinton: “It’s good to see there is life after the presidential campaign.”
Of course a Roman triumph was reserved for Roman generals that had been victorious on foreign fields of battle. I don’t see how that is applicable here. However, if Hillary Clinton can stop the FISA bulldozer, I’d be willing to participate in some kind of silly parade for her or something.