Veteran Washington reporter John Harwood wrote a blog for today’s New York Times that outlines how the gridlock in the capital is due not just to partisan battles, it’s also the product of intense bickering within both political parties.
Harwood points out that, in many ways, the behind the scenes Washington is more dysfunctional than the flailing around that we see on our TV screens.
As you read the column (below), continue to ask yourself, does any of this, from a national perspective, have anything to do with fixing things or finding solutions?
Or is it all about personalities, process and public perception?
Here’s Harwood’s piece:
“Every poll shows it: Americans are hopping mad at Washington.
“Well, Washington’s mad, too.
“Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has had recent disagreements with a fellow Democrat, William Daley, the White House chief of staff, over the handling of recent legislative issues.
“And not just mad in the familiar, tribal, partisan sense, the way historic rivals like the Yankees and the Red Sox see each other when they compete in autumn for the American League pennant. Though there is plenty of that — as tantrums on the Senate floor last week made clear.
“Among Democratic and Republicans alike, there is also the sort of locker-room backbiting that occurs when Yankee and Red Sox seasons end in ignominy (which just happened). Congressional Democrats are mad at Democrats in the White House over prerogatives, consultation and divergent interests.
“Senior Republicans on Capitol Hill are mad at junior Republicans over the balance between ideological zeal and political pragmatism.
“Workhorses in the House are mad at divas in the Senate over everything, because they always are.
“Former advisers to President Obama are mad at current advisers over economic and political strategy.
“The White House staff is mad at the White House press corps over how its battles with Republican adversaries are covered.
“As in baseball, the reasons become clear once you check the (poll) standings. With 2012 just around the corner, everyone here is losing.
“The anger that erupted as the Senate considered a crackdown (last week) on China’s trade policy encapsulated Washington’s maddening dysfunction.
“Democratic leaders were advancing what is called a ‘messaging bill’ (designed for the majority to score political points). Republicans were trying to force Democrats into ‘bad votes’ on amendments (point-scoring for the minority). Making law was secondary, since House leaders had vowed to block the bill (to the relief of the administration).
“But Democrats, mad over a looming ‘bad vote’ on the Obama jobs package they were rewriting, used a rare maneuver to block it. The Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, really mad now, accused Democrats of turning the chamber into the House — which senators disdain as their inferior in statesmanship.
“Actually, the entire American political system is moving toward the House’s predilection for reflexive, angry, ideologically fueled partisanship. The Senate’s unique madness is its inability to act at all.
“Of course, ideology runs so red-hot that sometimes the House can’t act, either.
“Four dozen Tea Party-inspired House Republicans last month angered and embarrassed their leaders by joining Democrats to defeat a spending bill including money for disaster relief. Senior Republicans saw those defectors as selfish showboats polishing their conservative reputations at the party’s expense.
“So Senate Republicans seized an opening for compromise with Senate Democrats, effectively imposing it on the House. That averted a fresh threat of government shutdown.
“Summertime brinksmanship by House Republicans over the debt ceiling, which simultaneously damaged the nation’s credit rating and the party’s poll ratings, had already made Senate Republicans mad enough.
“Intra-squad anger among Democrats, who stand to lose ground in 2012 Senate elections, can be worse.
“The top Senate Democrat, Harry Reid of Nevada, considers the White House chief of staff, William Daley, to be ham-handed. Democratic leaders complain that Team Obama’s zeal for secrets creates more problems than it solves.
“For instance, Senate Democrats believe inadequate consultation led the White House to botch the unveiling of “pay-fors” for Obama’s jobs package. Instead of reducing oil industry tax breaks and deductions for affluent taxpayers, which produced Democratic defections, they wanted the White House to adopt the “millionaire’s surtax” that the Senate is now substituting.
“Obama’s advisers think Reid has overreacted to perceived slights. They view Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a persistent critic of administration tax strategy whom Reid promoted within the leadership, as a self-promoting know-it-all.
“Within Obama’s circle, recriminations include complaints that Daley and the White House political strategist David Plouffe invested too much faith for too long in their ability to strike a debt-ceiling “grand bargain” with the House speaker, John Boehner. Some Obama advisers look back at the springtime standoff over government spending as a missed opportunity to confront Republicans, risking a government shutdown then that might have averted debt-ceiling paralysis later.
“Daley has reason to be mad. He thought he was returning to Washington after a decade’s absence to soothe business leaders and strike confidence-building deals with Republicans.
“So does Obama, who does not hide his frustration over the turn toward full-throated combat he now considers unavoidable. Nor do his aides hide theirs, over news accounts that they believe don’t adequately fault Republicans.
“That’s what 9.1 percent unemployment, 39 percent presidential approval (in Gallup’s weekend tracking) and 11 percent approval of Congress (in a CBS News poll last week) will do.
“Washington in the political and economic dumps? It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world.”
