Congressmen in Plato’s Cave

David Brooks has a typically delightful and instructive piece in the current issue of Atlantic . He points out that over four decades, 49 members of Congress have run for President, and of those exactly 49 have been beaten. The main reason, he says, is that Congressmen live in a political form of “Plato’s cave,” and have little contact with reality; they have contact only with the “shadows” of reality that come to them through lobbyists, other Congressmen, and others who are as obsessed with politics as the politicians are.