In these toughest of economic times, with the ‘Average Joes’ among us hit the hardest, we can all take comfort in knowing our politicians are just like us.  No, they’re not affected by the staffers bowing at their feet, the lobbyists paying their bills or the 20-year old interns honored to fetch their lunch and sort their mail.  Nope, they keep their pulse on the heartland, folks.  We all remember Alaska’s favorite ex-Senator Ted Stevens who explained to us common folk how his staff had told him how that “series of tubes,” or “the Internets,” really worked.

And then there was Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, an average guy, who knows about ATMs or, in his world, “the holograms,” but, well just doesn’t need money, evidently.  “I mean, I’m not without some skills.  I just haven’t had the need to use an ATM,” he said.  Right, we have interns for those details too.

And just this week, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), the chairman, yes CHAIRMAN, of the Senate committee assigned to oversee things like, um, technology, worried that an online retailer could “record every book you purchase” and “these machines, as I call them, are storing all of this information about you.”  Uh-oh, maybe it’ll turn into some unforeseen, worst-case scenario like, um, Amazon or Ebay.  And maybe those machines will be like, um, computers.  Run Senator, run!