When Bayh made his exit this month, with his wife and hapless sons arranged behind him as if posing for a hostage video, he made sure to sound the same timeless theme of a broken government, gummed up by partisanship and manned by pols too self-interested or gutless to muck out the works. After the deep drafts of self-flattery that have become common in political rhetoric--"I have often been a lonely voice for balancing the budget . . . I have fought . . . I have continued to fight . . . I have championed"--he announced that "Congress is not operating as it should." There was "partisanship" rather than "progress," "slogans" in place of "solutions," "alliteration" instead of "action." (I made up the last one.)
Monday, March 01, 2010
QOTD
Andrew Ferguson in the March 1st Weekly Standard, on Evan Bayh's announced retirement:
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5 comments:
Byah is a man of compromise and we live at the cusp of a national choice; shall we follow after Europe into what conservatives see as the abyss or will we pull back from the cliff's edge?
Compromise, can exist for instance in a discussion by a couple of which desert to share but not which of two restaurants to visit because you can't be in two places at once. One or the other shall have to be foregone.
So it is with the incompatible visions of constitutionally loyal Americans and radical democrats.
A servant can serve one master or the other but not both.
Again, evidence that Democrats say they will fight for you, while Republicans say they will work for you. This sums up a great deal of the difference between them philosophically.
And before my pal OBH gets apoplexy noting that Republicans don't actually do a great job of working for us, let me state my agreement. Neither party actually does all that much fighting or working for you. But the difference in approach, right down to the root, is revealing.
AVI: Interesting analysis--I'm thinking. . .
>>...evidence that Democrats say they will fight for you>>
But who will they fight? who is the enemy? That's _my_ problem...!
suek: The System. So working the system, gaming the system, becomes the politician's substitute for doing anything constructive.
Conservatives worry that we are going to keep imitating Sweden (which, BTW, is showing remarkable sense these days). I worry more about imitating Italy.
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