Opinion: You can talk and talk till your face is blue

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Most TV viewers who caught D. Kyle Sampson’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday were probably reminded of another chubby, balding and sheepish man: George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld’s sidekick.

But for political junkies of a certain age – my age – the appearance of the sorcerer’s apprentice of the U.S. attorney firings recalled a witness from almost 35 years ago: John W. Dean, who ratted out the Nixon administration before the Senate Watergate Committee.

I’m not positing a physical resemblance – Dean was lean and still had his hair in 1973 – nor am I suggesting that Sampson has done anything criminal. The point of similarity is age: Dean, the former White House counsel, was 34 when he faced Sen. Sam Ervin; Sampson is 37.

The latter’s (relative) youth provoked one of the dismissed U.S. attorneys to gripe that ‘it looks like that authority was delegated . . . all the way down to a bunch of 35-year-old kids.’ (A Washington Post reader wondered whether you can still be a kid at 35.)

But it’s an open secret in Washington that many decisions are crafted – and many speeches are written – by thirtysomething aides. (The Supreme Court is different: most of the justices’ law clerks are in their 20s.) Perhaps the Almanac of American Politics should consider merging with this publication.