In July, 2007, we watched the debates in the United States Senate over the progress in Iraq and was struck by the huge gulf between the views of the elected representatives and that of those they represented. That "disconnect" as it is called these days was a bit scary.

What struck the person who writes this drivel about what passed for a debate about he war on the floor of the United States Senate was that

everyone was simply going through the motions: very few Senators took positions other than the ones they were expected to take. There was very little courage shown, though many interesting views were expressed.

The upshot was ... only to stick the government's thumb in the public's eye even more. That public, for better or worse wants this [war] to end; the government, to one degree or another, apparently does not; at least not enough to do anything about it or even to rationally explain why not ... They enrage the public by this inaction and an enraged public is not the sort upon which a stable government can long survive.

But that was about war, somewhere far away and something that, without a draft to force people into it, can be dismissed by an American people with so much more to worry about....like staying employed. This economic crisis is getting deeper and deeper. Nobody has escaped its consequences and the prospects for the future appear more dire every day.


The fool with his head in the sand is gone and replaced by a thoughtful, vibrant and hugely popular new president. He has invoked the words of his best predecessors and offered a plan to try to avoid a downward spiral that could truly become disastrous.

Yet rather than spring to the call of the nation and of its new president, the Congress has reacted by going back to their usual playbook. Republicans, seeing only political calculations that show that support for the plan will get them no credit, have banded together to simply oppose what ever the new president supports. They supplement their clever arguments about why the tax cut solution their party has trotted out as a response to every economic issue which has come up since 1981, with such inspired rhetoric as "this is not a stimulus bill; it is a spending bill" as if there is even a hint of meaning in this kind of reasoning.

And the Democrats, with a solid majority in the House, and so many votes in the Senate that by sticking together they could all but prevent any filibuster on any issue, respond by leaping over one another to see how they can appease these screwballs instead of using reason to win them over, or, failing that, threatening them. The result is a bill that was likely too small for the task ahead of it, is now smaller and the danger to our country's economic well being even greater.

This is not a recipe for the future of our system of government. The empty headed fools who set the tone for this debate by foolishness on cable tv (including one outlet's attempt to pass off the dangerous extremism of Pat Buchanan, who has called World War II an "unnecessary war" yet found Joseph McCarthy to be unfairly maligned, as reflecting a mainstream sentiment), who consistently told us that debates which the American people found that our current President won overwhelmingly were a draw, and who rhapsodize about bipartisanship as if "getting along" was more important than doing what is right, are doing nobody any favors and are enabling Beltway thought in a way that is as dangerous to the future of this republic as anything Osama bin Laden could dream up.

The government that came into office in 1933 understood the crisis on just apolcalyptic terms. The portion of President Roosevelt's inaugural address that got the most attention the next day was not the line about what the only thing to fear was, but this:

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis--broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

That, it was understood correctly, was the threat that dictatorial powers might become necessary if Congress responded to the crisis as it had always done before; by dividing into partisan corners throwing philosophical talking points at one another.  President Roosevelt said this knowing that he would have public support for taking these "powers" if need be. The Congress saw that and, rather than risk complete irrelevance, supported the new President in his plan to attack what faced the country.

We are at that same crossroads today, but as a far more bitterly divided nation. The spectacle of what has taken place in the Senate over the past few days should be sobering, and should wake up those who believe that as with so many storms we have weathered before, this one will eventually pass without dire consequences. That could still be so, but it is a very thin reed to count upon.