Legal Commentary

People Disagree

By Big Tent Democrat

Yglesias writes:

[T]he US House of Representative is a fairly well-functioning legislative body. It’s a body organized around two major political parties that outline competing, somewhat coherent agendas that command large-scale support from their own members and little support from the opposition. [. . .] There are biannual elections at which the American people put either one party or the other in charge, and having won an election the winning party attempts to govern in a way that maintains the confidence of the voters.

It’s a perfectly good system. [. . . John] Boehner’s ideas are different from Nancy Pelosi’s ideas, and if he wants his ideas to prevail he needs to assemble a majority prepared to support him. That’s his responsibility as an opposition leader, whereas Pelosi’s responsibility is to frame a successful governing agenda that maintain’s the public’s faith in her co-partisans. It’s a system where power aligns with responsibility, and where those with power are held accountable for their use of it. The Senate, by contrast, is a mess.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is obviously true. And the Presidency, especially since the Imperial Presidency, SHOULD work in the same way. That's why Obama's post partisan unity schtick is so annoying. It is ridiculous and wrong.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 31, 2010 (boomark / email).