It may seem like Your Humble Bloggeur is picking on his old boss Dave Zweifel. Well, O.K., I am picking on him. Maybe it’s Pavlovian; maybe the target is too inviting.

Dave ruminates, “And to think we could have had President Sanders.” Yeah, and we also could have had a V-8. (Cue Dandy Don: If ifs and buts were candy and nuts …)

Sanders and Trump campaigned in Wisconsin; the Hildabeast did not. But the CT was all in for Hillary a year before the election! while Comrade Nichols was bound and gagged in the storage room.

So, naturally, Democrats like Dave are in high dudgeon over Trump’s nominees. None of them seem to be liberal, progressive, or socialist. (“Trump over Hillary Clinton still boggles the mind,” Zweifel writes. That’s one thing we agree on, Dave!)

At the moment, the Democrat(ic) establishment is busy figuring how to bork (verb, transitive) Neil Gorsuch, who would be played by Tom Hanks if Hollywood made sympathetic movies about conservatives. (If ifs and buts …) (“The nominee for a stolen seat,” the New York Times crabs.)

That doesn’t mean the minority party has forgotten Trump’s cabinet nominees. They are boycotting several scheduled committee votes. Reminds the aged staff historian here at the Policy Werkes of the 2011 Flight to Rockford by the State Senate Democrats — futile and foolish. (Alliteration, no extra charge.)

When you can’t attack on the merits, you attack the motive. Mr. Zweifel implies that Betsy DeVos purchased her nomination as secretary of the Department of Education. 

He quotes ol’ Bernie’s question at her nomination hearing:

“Do you think, if you were not a multibillionaire, if your family had not made hundreds of millions of dollars of contributions to the Republican Party, that you would be sitting here today?”

Sen. Sanders suggested that the DeVos family poured $200 million into the Republican party. Now, if the Exchequer of the Stately Manor could lay his hands on $200 million, he would purchase something that goes a lot faster, makes more noise, and is a whole bunch sexier than the U.S. Department of Education. (I woulda had a V-8 — or a V-12!)

For $200 million, Secretary of Education makes a lousy T-shirt. The President gets Air Force One. The Sec’y of Ed gets School Bus One. Crankshaft is driving.

Secretaries of State get to wear tuxedos with sashes at foreign embassy parties soaked in martinis. Sec’ys of Ed are forced to read my My Pet Goat in Miss Frances’ Romper Room, wondering why the local TV station didn’t send anyone to record the non-event.

Researchers here at the Werkes could not verify the $200 million figure. But we did find sources say the DeVos family has given $17 million to the Republican conspiracy. We also find the family has given $139 million to charity. But, close enough for government work.

Betsy’s got attitude!

In a 1997 op-ed, DeVos wrote:

I have decided to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We expect to foster a conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government and respect for traditional American virtues. We expect a return on our investment; we expect a good and honest government. Furthermore, we expect the Republican Party to use the money to promote these policies and, yes, to win elections.”

There is another two-word response, besides “So what?” It would be “Penny Pritzker.”

Which summons a larger point. Unlike the previous occupant of the White House, Trump is most certainly NOT appointing his cronies. Betsy DeVos, for instance, first supported Jeb Bush, then Carly Fiorina, and finally Marco Rubio. Not exactly the Trump fan club, those three.

Also consider: no big jobs for Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, or Sarah Palin. (Jeff Sessions and Ben Carson would be the exceptions that prove the rule.)

The real reason Dave Zweifel and his party fear and loathe Betsy DeVos is that she is a national leader in education reform. The lady paid particular attention to Detroit’s failing schools in her native Michigan. That’s what grates a party still in hock to the teachers unions. It’s why Democrats like Mark Pocan stand shoulder to shoulder with teacher union bosses, not minority kids.