Iowa congressman Bruce Braley, a 2014 Senate candidate, is demonstrating that he may possess precisely those qualities Democrats seem to find so attractive in their presidents.

We’ve known for a while that Braley holds fellow trial lawyers in much higher esteem than America’s farmers.  According to a Des Moines Register report back in March:

“If you help me win this race,” Braley says in the video, posted online by a donor after the Jan. 23 fundraiser in Corpus Christi, Texas and released today by the conservative America Rising PAC, “you may have someone with your background, your experience, your voice, someone’s who’s been literally fighting tort reform for 30 years in a visible and public way on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Or you might have a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Braley says. “Because if Democrats lose the majority, Chuck Grassley will be the next chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.”

Even in a room full of like-minded opponents of tort reform, some well-lubed on adult beverages, that was such a bone-headed thing to say that even Slate called it “The Gaffe of the Year.”  It almost sounds like something you’d hear on an FBI recording from a Mafia summit in Apalachin, most particularly that “literally fighting tort reform for 30 years,” which surely caught the attention of Iowa’s medical community and corporations and insurers everywhere, traditionally the three most frequent victims of litigation abuse.

Not satisfied with ticking off all those folks, as well as all those Iowa farmers, Braley has once again shown that he’s cut from similar cloth as what one finds in that other tone-deaf lawyer – the one in the White House (or is it Martha’s Vineyard)?  According to the Des Moines Register, Braley has been a no-show at 15 out of the 20 Veterans Oversight Committee meetings he was supposed to attend, the most recent being last week.  My first thought was that perhaps he was too busy serving his national trial lawyer constituency, out there bravely battling tort reform on their behalf.  But no, as the saying goes, follow the money.

Truth is, Braley skipped that last pesky veterans committee to attend three Washington fundraisers for his senate campaign.  That feat may well earn him some presidential admiration, or more likely envy.  While the committee’s minutes have Braley present, the Register reports that the video record of the meeting shows his seat unoccupied throughout, which means that not only is he unconcerned about the affairs of veterans in the midst of a Veterans Administration crisis, but he’s devious enough to get himself signed in without showing up, or showing up just long enough to sign in and then sneaking off to raise campaign money.  Now you must admit, folks, that kind of system-gaming assuredly demonstrates future Democrat presidential talent.

To prove my premise, Braley has the endorsement of this Democrat trial lawyer, whose sterling character and impeccable honesty also reflect the qualifications their party so cherishes.

Now if he just had some Purple Hearts…