Ungovernable?

There are two recent articles posted on the internet commenting on the latest Democrat party talking point–“the United States in ungovernable.”  One is at Power Line, written by John Hinderaker, and one is at the Washington Post, written by Charles Krauthammer.  Both articles remind us that this is the common cry of a party trying to pass unpopular laws.

The Power Line article quoted George Will speaking Sunday morning on ABC (he is responding to a comment by Evan Bayh)

“GEORGE WILL: Well, it’s hard to take a lecture on bipartisanship from a man who voted against the confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts, the confirmation of Justice Alito, the confirmation of Attorney General Ashcroft, the confirmation of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. Far from being a rebel against his Party’s lockstep movement, Mr. Bayh voted for the Detroit bailout, for the stimulus, for the public option in the healthcare bill. I don’t know quite what his complaint is, but, Terry, with metronomic regularity, we go through these moments in Washington where we complain about the government being broken. These moments have one thing in common: The Left is having trouble enacting its agenda. No one when George W. Bush had trouble reforming Social Security said, “Oh, that’s terrible – the government’s broken.”:”

One of the joys of the new media is that it puts the facts at everyone’s fingertips and allows all of us to evaluate statements like ‘the government is broken’ in the context of history.

Charles Krauthammer points out that the government seems to be broken only at times when we have Presidents who don’t seem to be able to accomplish anything.  It magically gets fixed when a different President is elected.

Mr. Krauthammer points out that the filibuster is viewed as wonderful or horrible depending on who is in power:

“…Of course, just yesterday the same Paul Krugman was warning about “extremists” trying “to eliminate the filibuster” when Democrats used it systematically to block one Bush (43) judicial nomination after another. Back then, Democrats touted it as an indispensable check on overweening majority power. Well, it still is. Indeed, the Senate with its ponderous procedures and decentralized structure is serving precisely the function the Founders intended: as a brake on the passions of the House and a caution about precipitous transformative change.”

The government isn’t broken–it’s listening to public in refusing to pass some of the more radical and expensive programs of the Obama Administration.  Now if it would only stop the runaway spending…