I think the word you're looking for is "millstone."

Those last few years of political employment? Not as valuable as you might have hoped for:

Former Bush adviser on working for Bush: Don’t want to ‘emphasize that on your resume.’

In the Texas Observer today, Anthony Zurcher describes how “no one’s been rolling out the red carpet” for Bush administration officials as they return to Texas. “For every Karen Hughes who lands a highly paid consulting gig, there’s an Alberto Gonzales, who seems condemned to wander the Earth in search of gainful employment,” writes Zurcher. Former Bush pollster Matthew Dowd explains why the Bush association makes it difficult “to make a go of a political career“:

If any of Bush’s Texas crowd wants to make a go of a political career, however, they’re going to have to do it in spite of their ties to the administration and not because of them, at least in near term.

“Bush is an anchor,” Dowd said. “I don’t think you can take your experience in Washington working with the Bush administration and emphasize that on your resumé.”

I'm thinking that we might be seeing some of the same up here in the not-so-distant future:

"Hi, my name's Stephen Taylor and I'm interested in the position of political researcher and assistant. Well, I was the co-founder of the Blogging Tories and ... hello? Hello? Fuck!"

If life was fair, he and Patsy Ross would one day have adjoining cardboard boxes above an intermittently warm street grate somewhere.