Good Government Gridlock
This entry was posted on 10/8/2006 2:59 PM and is filed under All Posts,The Lies.
I was skimming through yet another eye-glazing "centrist" column by David Broder of The Washington Post today, when I came across a section that got my blood boiling.
David's column is focusing on the "failures" of the past session of Congress (last 2 years) to accomplish much of anything. All well and good, I guess. It's all about how you define failure, though, isn't it? And the following sentence tells us exactly how David Broder defines failure in government:
Some of the session's failures may be laid at the feet of the minority Democrats, who used parliamentary tactics, particularly in the Senate, to thwart some Republican proposals.
Now why, exactly, is that a failure of the congressional session? Broder is neither conservative nor liberal, and does not mean anything ideological by this sentence. In the event of a Congress controlled by Democrats, where a minority of Republicans blocked legislation, he would likely make the same point.
But why would that be a failure, either? No one's making up these rules, and no one's breaking the rules when they stop legislation in this manner. They are called parliamentary tactics for the same reason they aren't called military tactics—they are codified, civil methods of negotiating the mechanics of democratic government. They also happen to be a storied cornerstone of our nation's legislative heritage.
The larger issue, though, is the way Broder views failure vs. success in a Congressional session. If laws get passed, that's a success. If they don't, that's a failure. Never mind that representatives are elected to represent the interests and, yes, ideology of their constituents. To Broder, any elected official who would block legislation that would harm those constituents is a participant in failure.
And never mind the obvious: that a lot of proposed laws are just bad, and if gridlock keeps bad bills from being made into law, that may often be the best we can hope for out of our Congress. It surely is the best thing gotten out of the corrupt clan of thugs that have ruled since 1994. 
