The "Public Service" Line of Crap

Via Dreher, this from Clive Crook:

It's starting to annoy me that Barack keeps telling us how he turned down Wall Street for a career in "public service". By this he means politics. Just how great a sacrifice is that? The kind of ambition that gets you into the Senate and maybe the White House is not exactly renouncing the world and all its temptations, is it? And now here we have Michelle doing the same thing. She gave up lawyering, she says, and chose "public service"--the kind that leads in due course to a 300k-plus salary. I've no problem with it. I just don't want to keep being asked to admire the sacrifice.

Aside from the ego-stroking office staff, the worship (and money) from various interest-groups, and the VERY nice pension and health-benefits, if you can assemble a few sentences into a book (or two) one can do very well, indeed in "public service."

And a $1million house in the in-burbs.

If "public service" is such a challenge, howcumizzit that virtually no "public servants" quit?