A job I don't want

After listening to Joel Southern's Tuesday story on efforts to get Ted Stevens to talk about the investigation into his relationship with VECO, you have to feel sorry for Stevens' unnamed press aide.

Reporters are pressing Stevens for comment and the press aide keeps saying, "If you give me your card, I can get you our statement." But no one pays any attention to him because they know what the statement says and they want Stevens to say something. But the press aide is persistent and keeps offering the statement. Finally, Stevens himself gets fed up and says to the press aide, "Let me answer the questions!" To which the press aide can say nothing but "Yes, sir!" and shut up.

Given Stevens' reputed penchant for being unable to remember the names of any of his staff members, the poor press aide is looking pretty sorry indeed. Not only does he get ignored by the press (his apparent constituency), his boss belittles him in public, likely without even knowing who he is.

Is all that abuse really worth the resume line of working in Stevens' office?