In one of the endless number of great West Wing episodes, the biblical story of the shibboleth comes front and center as only WW could do. The point of this diary is not to repeat that story, or its West Wing version, but to talk about today's version: the expression that supposedly establish a reporter as independent, able to criticize the current President as well as the former Fool Who Occupied the Same Office.

Forget for a moment how bogus the premise is: that the criticism of the prior President only began after it became impossible to ignore what anybody with half a brain should have seen no later than the afternoon of September 11 and that the guy was so completely unsuited for the office that it endangered the country. Here is today's shibboleth, repeated almost every minute on some cable television show:

The people do not want the people it sent to Congress to quibble.


Of the thousand things one hears on cable tv that makes a person wonder just how low our educational system has sunk, this ranks as one of the most foolish things that could be said. Yet to be part of the cable proletariat or a Beltway Insider, it must be said, repeated and subjected to all sorts of head shaking and sighing.

Politics, the saying goes, is the art of making hard choices, not easy ones. In fact, of course, people elect Senators and members of the House to present argument, their argument, as to what should be done. The whole premise of the legislative process is that argument and compromise are the best means to produce legislation which will work and have the confidence of the people.

The premise is frequently wrong, especially in an era where party discipline or philosophical issues trump reasonable, collective thought. As Paul Krugman cogently argued in The Conscience of a Liberal, the acceptance of the New Deal by the vast majority of the country including most Republicans by the mid 1950s, fostered a period of great legislative progress, with Congress divided much less by party than by region.

That is not where we are now. The aftermath of the 1964 election, as the "conservative movement" took over the Republican party, resulting in the election of the supposedly amiable idiot movie actor in 1980, and, eventually the utterly incompetent they put forward in 2000, has resulted in our having only one political party actually interested in the welfare of our country and its people, or capable of doing anything about it. The other one is interested only in slogans, philosophical arguments about social or economic principles, and putting on a show.

We have had such periods before but in lesser degrees. The entire period from President Roosevelt's inauguration until either the Republicans took control of the Senate in 1981 or the House in 1995 (there were momentary lapses in Democratic control of the houses of Congress but nothing significant) included large portions of essentially one party "rule" of this sort, but this new era of Republican irrelevancy may be longer and deeper than any prior one we have seen.

This seems to be a good thing, but it is not necessarily. When the Democratic Party was all that matters, the tensions of the time tend to focus on the party rather than Congress. The demonstrations that accompanied the 1968 Democratic National Convention far exceeded the importance of any of the countless marches on Washington, and the small bore "corruption" that eventually destroyed the party's hegemony in Congress had more lingering significance than the more serious and damaging imperial presidency of Nixon, which the Cheny-ites tried to bring back with Bush II.

For now the point is that Congress watchers need to ignore the noise or soundbites that emanate from such people as John Boehner, Mitch McConnell or Rush Limbaugh, because none of them matter. That does not mean the end of the complicated business of crafting legislation: it just becomes more of an intra-party thing and, therefore, more hidden from view.

That is why it is not good in principle to have only one viable political party. This is not to bemoan the fact: it is, as they say, what it is. The Republican Party has been reduced to a parody of its 1920s "Daddy Warbucks" incarnation: the Roosevelt haters who had precious little else to say. That means, however, that Democrats need to police themselves, not always an easy task.

Let's be real, folks. This "stimulus package" is not a pretty sight, and, despite the President's reassurances, is filled with all sorts of the types of "Christmas presents" that we have become used to, especially in pieces of legislation which are proposed as "emergency" measures. This, too, is not necessarily bad. Rahm Emanuel's now almost axiomatic comment about not wanting "a serious crisis to go to waste" is Roosevelt-like thinking and surely so. Paul Krugman's column about the need to deal with the health insurance issue during this perios is surely right on point. There is no question that several important but not directly stimulative items belong in this "package" if only because they will have trouble gaining traction later.

But we need an honest broker---a policeman of sorts---to make sure that along with those things that are stimulative, and the others that sort of need to be tucked into this thing to sneak them into law, that there be as few spend for spendings sake items as possible since it is hardly in anyone's interest to provide more ammunition for ridicule, which will retard whatever chances there are to deal with more cosmic issues as time goes on. (I think said Rahm is that police officer. He was appointed chief of staff by the person elected to be President of the United States which seems to be adequate qualification for the position of overseer of the legislation, and he can be a mean sonofabitch when necessary, a key component of any "honest broker."

FDR resisted the calls for him to take on dictatorial powers to prevent the slow acting Congress from obstructing the country's recovery. That certainly set back the country's financial base, but it shored up our democracy, which was, of course, more important. President Obama must try to resist the calls to just go "hog wild" with the authority now vested in him and his party. Same reason and then some.

At the same time, the nature of the emergency is clear. The President is surely right to listen to points of view other than his own, and to try to encourage wide acceptance of what needs to be done. But our need today, as the President has recognized, is for action and action now, as his most successful and distinguished predecessor famously said upon his inauguration.

Next on our list of shibboleths to tackle is the one that seems befuddled by the idea that executive privilege, if legitimate, can be invoked on behalf of someone who is no longer president. The answer is simple to divine if you substitute the name of a useful former occupant of that office, say President Clinton, for the fool who now seeks to invoke it. The issue with regard to Rove is not that "his" president is no longer on office, but that he seeks to invoke the "privilege" in an illegal manner, as to things which are not necessarily privileged. Time, however, is up for today's class so this will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest.

Rest in peace, John Updike. For the rest of us there is always Super Sunday to look forward to.