US Potato politics: The potato wars

Sen. Susan Collins is a more gentle soul than your typical Republican Steering Committee regular, but there she was in the Capitol last week: Ms. Maine Moderate lunching with the “Sons of Jesse Helms” — all in the name of the potato.

It was a jaw-dropping, don’t-spill-your-fries moment and a sign of the newest civil rights frontier of this dysfunctional Congress: the battle over equity among vegetables.

The Irish potato folks — and Collins in particular — are mad as hell and vowing not to take it any more in the face of proposed Agriculture Department rules to bar white potatoes from school breakfast plans and limit consumption to one to two servings per week at lunch.