You have a point...never thought of it that way.
That's the reason we have all that deadwood at our local newspapers.
All these people have these guaranteed lifetime union contracts and so there's no money and room for the truly productive, let alone talented. Same at the schools. The talent can't flow in because those with nothing going for them but seniority can't be gotten rid of. That is the tremendous crisis of virtually all our institutions.
Some of these people might have gotten in as enthusiastic, idealistic liberals a generation or two ago -- and now they are the reactionary status quo fighting off the enthusiastic, idealistic, innovative people of these times. It's a fairly well-established pattern.
That's why you think, "Gee, why doesn't Saddam see the handwriting on the wall and just step aside and retire to a life of luxury in Paris?" They can't let go; they'd rather drag the whole society down with them. That's what you see on television a lot -- these aging baby boomers who won't step aside for the next generation. Notice how that generation is basically absent -- and instead, we see these people showing off their latest plastic surgery to show they're still viable fresh faces.
Yesterday's liberals have become the people they mocked and derided as young people; they did not age gracefully to the next level -- and become Republicans.