The Bush/Cheney train may have left the station, leaving all its highly placed BYU-connected operatives to slither into the corners until the next Republican lovefest in D.C., but that doesn't mean there isn't room at Obama's table for those of the LDS persuasion.

Utahn Larry EchoHawk is slated to head up Indian Affairs in Obama's Department of the Interior. Born in Wyoming, raised in New Mexico, educated in Utah (at BYU on a football scholarship and at the U of U for a law degree), EchoHawk first practiced law in Salt Lake City. In 1977, he headed to Idaho to work for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in Fort Hall. Then in 1982, he was elected as a House Democrat, representing Idaho's Bannock County, followed by a stint as Bannock County prosecuting attorney, then Idaho attorney general in 1990.

After an unsuccessful bid for Idaho governor in 1994, EchoHawk joined the faculty at BYU's law school. EchoHawk, a member of the LDS Church, serves as a stake president at BYU.

Mormon, Pawnee Indian, Democrat--it's like an exercise of "Things That Don't Go Together"--EchoHawk is essentially an amalgam of the West. And now, assuming he is confirmed, he'll have "Washington high-ranking bureaucrat" to add to the list. Godspeed.