Power in government

Rothkopf is worth quoting just for the parentheticals:

Many years ago, in the dark ages, when Bill Clinton was the savior of the Democratic Party and I was a 38-year-old Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Policy Development (the longer your title in government, the less power you have), I went on a trip to China. It was with Secretary of the Treasury Lloyd Bentsen and his team. I was new to the government and did not know most of them. They, I'm sure, didn't have the slightest idea why I was on the plane. Certainly, they treated me like cargo. Bentsen looked at me like I was a stain on his new carpet and the others seemed to resent that I was taking up a seat that could just as easily be used to bring home souvenirs.

But also on that plane was a scrawny character who looked like he had just escaped from Camp Wackahoochee. He was even younger than me (in fact he looked like he was there for International Bring Your Kid to Sensitive International Diplomacy Week) and his name was Tim Geithner.