Sohn: The zombies are coming to a D.C. swamp near you

There's talk this week that Democrats may give President-elect Donald Trump's cabinet picks "the Garland treatment."

That would be in reference to the near-year snub President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland has gotten from Republicans with not even a hearing.

Some Senate Democrats appear to be preparing to put Trump's cabinet picks through grinding confirmations that could eat up weeks of the Senate calendar and hamper Trump's first 100 days in office.

That's not good for bipartisanship. On the other hand, most of Trump's cabinet picks to date offer few encouraging signs for gridlock relief.

Chaos, maybe - but little else that would resemble clearing the road for rational governing and bipartisan progress.

Democrats argue that making the confirmations a long slog (they likely can't block any on their own as only one requires more than 51 votes for approval), is less about revenge and more about making sure the nominees get full vetting.

After all, some of Trump's picks are downright frightening: Like Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, a 69-year-old, four-term senator from Alabama, who couldn't be confirmed for a federal judgeship under Ronald Reagan because he made racist comments. His nomination would seem to light up a White House leaning toward white supremacy.

Sessions' Reagan nomination was not confirmed because four lawyers who had worked with him said he had called the NAACP "un-American" and "Communist-inspired." One said Sessions had called him "boy" and told him to be "careful what you say to white folks." He said Sessions told him he thought the KKK was "OK until I found out they smoked pot." Sessions said that comment had been a joke, but he apologized. He denied the other comments.

Now Trump thinks Sessions should preside over our entire justice system. Really?

Democrats likely - hopefully - will draw out and require roll call votes on Tom Price as health and human services secretary, Betsy DeVos as secretary of education, Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary, Dr. Ben Carson as housing secretary and retired Marine Gen. James Mattis as secretary of defense.

Price, chairman of the House Budget Committee and an orthopedic surgeon, supports privatizing Medicare and is a longtime Obamacare and Planned Parenthood critic. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the incoming Senate minority leader, has said nominating him as health secretary "is akin to asking the fox to guard the henhouse."

DeVos, who with her Amway-heir husband is one of the most prolific GOP donors, is the queen of school voucher advocates. She does not support Common Core. Mother Jones labeled her and her husband the "new Kochs."

Mnuchin is a hedge fund manager who worked for 17 years at Goldman Sachs. Remember Trump thrashing Hillary for her Goldman Sachs affinity?

Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, is a vice chairman on the Trump transition team. His aides first said he declined the nomination because he didn't feel he was qualified. When he reconsidered and accepted, he told Fox News: "I grew up in the inner city and have spent a lot of time there, and have dealt with a lot of patients from that area and recognize that we cannot have a strong nation if we have weak inner cities." Yep - by that standard, any of us who grew up in the U.S. are ready to be president.

Mattis retired from the Marine Corps in 2013 after a 41-year career that included leading U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Kuwait during the Persian Gulf War. He most recently served as head of U.S. Central Command. But like Trump, he can't keep his mouth shut. Plus, Congress would have to pass a special law to exempt Mattis from the requirement that commissioned officers be out of active duty at least seven years before serving as defense secretary.

Unfortunately there are likely more controversial picks to come. And even more unfortunate are the two Trump picks that no amount of congressional oversight can delay or derail.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was forced to retire early, is set to lead our intelligence collections. This is insane.

Flynn posts and retweets clearly "fake news" that rational people should find preposterous. One such frightening fake news item recently prompted a 28-year-old father of two from North Carolina to drive six hours to a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant to "self-investigate" a falsely alleged Hillary Clinton-led child abuse ring. Flynn fell for these tales, too (or else didn't care that they were false) - and he now will be our president's National Security Adviser.

Flynn also tweeted in February "fear of Muslims is RATIONAL." Just think, he will be one of two people who will have Trump's ear first thing in the morning and last thing every evening.

(By the way, the North Carolina vigilante sucked into the fake news sex ring story fired shots at the pizza place from an assault-like AR-15 rifle. No one was hurt. He was arrested and charged.)

The other first-and-last Trump whisperer will be Breitbart alt-right provocateur Steve Bannon, who as Trump's chief strategist and senior adviser, also will receive no congressional "extreme vetting."

No, Trump isn't draining "the swamp." He's making it his personal lagoon.