"Leaner and...what's that word?"

This week at The New Yorker, Ian Frazier sees some pretty big changes when Jack Welch is put in charge of the Democratic party.

And Hendrik Hertzberg eyes the collusion of the GOP when it comes to who gets to buy the Washington Lobbyists...er...Senators.

“From a fan’s perspective, who needs the politics?” Congressman Sweeney wanted to know. Well, in a town that went nine to one for Kerry over Bush, the perspective of fans won’t necessarily count for much. Who needs the politics? One answer may be Frederic V. Malek, a principal in what Roll Call describes as “the ownership group seen by many insiders as the frontrunner to buy the team.” Malek’s C.V. is heavy with Republican credentials, including 1992 campaign manager for President George H. W. Bush and former part owner of the Texas Rangers, in which capacity he helped arrange for Bush’s wayward son to be the front man and reap a fifteen-million-dollar profit on a six-hundred-thousand-dollar investment. Earlier, when young Malek was an aide in the Nixon White House, he was tasked to estimate the membership of what his boss deemed a “Jewish cabal” in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He complied, no doubt with some misgivings. Still, as an experienced Jew-counter, he can undertake to insure that the Nationals don’t get cluttered up with too many Hank Greenbergs or Sandy Koufaxes.

Nice. Hertzberg also plays us some golden oldies from GOPUSA (yes, of Gannon/Guckert fame) and its enlightened views on George Soros.

And Mark Schmitt fact-checks The New Yorker.