Craig Gibson
Is it real or is it Memorex?
by Craig Gibson on 8 February 2010
I have brought up a couple of times the growing consternation among the liberals in the press (e.g., Thomas Friedman, Paul Krugman, the good folks at the Balkinization blog) that America has become an “ungovernable nation” (whatever that means). While partisanship is undoubtedly on the rise, the partisan atmosphere of today feels more more poisonous than it did before 9/11 or in the years after the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. And yet, both Presidents Clinton and Bush were able to get a many of their pet projects through the Congress, the former with the Opposition Party is control and the latter working with smaller majorities than President Obama currently enjoys.
I agree that Senate rules need to be reformed. The filibuster should be made into a real filibuster again, and the tortuous process of individual senators being able to put anonymous holds on presidential nominations to executive branch posts needs to be done away with. However, President Obama cannot be so easily let off the hook. America is not ungovernable. She just does not have any leaders who will step up to govern.
2010-02-08 » Craig Gibson
8 February 2010 @ 3:45 pm
The left thinks America is ungovernable because they want to govern too doggone much.
It reminds me of Princess Leia’s words to Governor Tarkin. “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
8 February 2010 @ 4:33 pm
The big difference between the Democratic congress under Obama and the Republican congress under Bush is that the Republicans are able or willing to get their members to act with unity, for the most part. If that were true of the Democrats, we would already have passed health care reform. Whether that is a good thing or not depends, I suppose, on whether you manage to keep your insurance as costs spiral out of control.
8 February 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Certainly things are messy right now, but some people just need a little historical perspective. If the nation now is ungovernable because congress is deeply divided and unwilling to bridge gaps, how did we manage to survive the 1840’s without completely disintegrating? Yes, it resulted in a war, but we survived even that. Apparently “ungovernable” just means “it’s hard.”
8 February 2010 @ 4:55 pm
This is another interesting article, in this regard.
Down in the comments someone said: