Almost exactly ten years ago, I was on an airplane, and had the good luck to be seated next to a very distinguished, highly regarded United States senator. (Hi ho the glamorous life!) This man was a senator of the sort that they don’t make anymore. He collected honorary degrees the way other people collect stamps. He was the object of secret scorn and public praise by the young Turks of his party. Many people thought he should have been Secretary of State. He probably thought so himself. He certainly looked the part—perhaps not as much as the current holder of the job, but it was close.

I introduced myself and asked him about a telephone-book-sized volume sitting on his lap. He said it was the farm bill. That’s how I know it was ten years ago. The farm bill comes up every five years and I knew this incident had to be more than five and less than fifteen. Unlike, apparently, everybody else in America, farmers not only need large subsidies from the rest of the taxpayers to make it through the day, but they need their checks guaranteed years in advance, so they can plan.

The senator picked up the farm bill and began waving it around. “Look at this, and now look at this!” he said. I had no idea that senators ever read the legislation they were voting on, let alone analyzing it in such detail. I was impressed. The senator denounced the farm program as a giant boondoggle, with subsidies for people who don’t need them. These subsidies don’t just waste money. They distort the market and poison our relationships with other countries around the world. He went on and on for most of the two-hour flight.

Returning to the office, I recounted this story to my colleagues. At least one senator will vote his conscience on a large federal spending program. At least one won’t pander to the special interests, will stand up to his own constituents, and so forth. I was working myself up into a fine patriotic froth, when a colleague interrupted me.

“He’s a good man, but you know of course that he voted for the farm bill.” I checked and it seemed to be true. Of course in the American version of parliamentary democracy there may be dozens of votes on any particular bill, and you can’t always tell which one is the one that counts.