BCT Editorial – 10/26/06

This page was last updated on November 2, 2006.

The First Branch; Editorial; Beaver County Times; October 26, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“No matter which party wins on Nov. 7, Congress must reassert its independence

[RWC] Make no mistake. I believe you’ll find the Times definition of “independence” in this context means opposing anything and everything President Bush – and presumably any Republican president – wants to accomplish.

“If Democrats win control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in the Nov. 7 general election, they must not see it as an endorsement of their party or their policies.

“In large part, they will have been a minority party that benefited enormously from an anti-incumbent mood that is wide and deep.

“If Republicans continue to control Congress, they should not see it as a vindication of their party or their policies.

“Instead, they will have benefited from the power of incumbency (and the special interest money it brings in to out-fund opponents) and gerrymandering.”

[RWC] Let me get this straight, we’re to believe Democrat candidates trying to unseat Republican incumbents – or vice versa – receive no Democrat/liberal “special interest money?”

“But whichever party controls both chambers (or only one) post-Nov. 7, it would be making a mistake if it didn’t undertake much-needed changes to fix what government and political experts Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein called ‘The Broken Branch’ in their recent book with that title.

“The two recommend a number of internal changes that need to be made to make Congress, especially the House, more workable and more responsive to the needs of the people, not the parties.

“However, Mann and Ornstein argue that what is needed first and foremost is for Congress to reassert its place of importance in the federal government’s system of checks-and-balances.

“Congress is referred to as the First Branch because it’s right there in Article 1, Section 1. For more than a decade, however, Congress has been kowtowing to the executive branch.

“It started in 1992, toward the end of the Democrats’ 40 years of control of Congress (with a six-year break in the Senate from 1980-86). With President Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, Democratic leaders started to view the role Congress played in government as being subservient to the needs of a Democratic president.”

[RWC] “[T]he Democrats’ 40 years of control of Congress?” The editorial understates the situation quite a bit. Please see my critique of “Deliver a spanking” to see what I mean.

With the possible exception of a single session, we’re to believe Democrat-controlled Congresses did their duty as the Times sees it. How convenient.

“But the decline of institutional independence really took off when George Bush became president in 2000 and the GOP retained control of Congress. (There was a short period when Democrats controlled the Senate.) Instead of viewing their branch of government as equal partners in governance, Republicans in Congress believed that their job was to do whatever the president wanted.”

[RWC] Note the editorial is long on accusation but devoid of examples and evidence.

“No matter which party controls the House and/or Senate after Nov. 7, changes must be made in the way Congress operates. Americans are sick and tired of the pettiness and the politics. They want to see relevant results, not ideological vendettas.”

[RWC] “[N]ot ideological vendettas?” Does the Times editorial board read its own editorials?

“Robert G. Kaiser summed it up fairly well in his review of Mann’s and Ornstein’s book in The Washington Post.

“‘It is easy to recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Congress, how it works and how it should work ...’ he wrote. ‘And if Democrats win control of the House in November, this book will suddenly be useful to both parties: to the Democrats as a cautionary tale and a useful blueprint, to the Republicans as an insight into where they went wrong.’”