The New York Times is the newspaper that makes you want to gouge your own eyes out when it’s doing a particularly bad job; the Washington Post makes you want to gouge your own eyes out when it’s doing a good job, like this fantastic report on the pettiest issue before Congress: the taco salad.

The famed House taco salad, which draws hungry patrons from both sides of the Capitol every Wednesday, may soon be available on the Senate side of the complex. After weeks of unexpected objections, House Republicans finally agreed yesterday evening to a carefully crafted deal that would allow Restaurant Associates, the private contractor that has run House eating establishments since the 1980s, to take over the troubled Senate dining facilities. After months of negotiation, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last month overcame Democratic opposition to the privatization of the famed Senate Dining Room and the chamber’s other eateries, persuading colleagues to approve the deal. The Senate’s food service operation has lost $18 million since 1993; it has turned a profit seven times in the last 44 years and is on the verge of losing $2 million in fiscal 2008. The plan, approved unanimously, offers current Senate food service workers buyout packages worth as much as $25,000 for the longest-tenured staff members, if they don’t want to work for Restaurant Associates. Employees who sign on with the contractor would receive guarantees of their current salaries and would be allowed to maintain their federal benefits. New hires would not receive such benefits.

Only Congress could operate a cafeteria with a built-in clientele of aged bureaucrats and lose a couple million dollars a year. Can’t we just turn the operation over to Luby’s or Golden Corral?

But we should always take a moment to remember the father of the taco salad – a real man of genius.