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Feb. 18th, 2008 07:51 amWilliam Krisotl has an interesting op-ed in today's NYT. In it he argues that Democrats have forgotten how to govern and have gotten used to sitting in the opposition benches and simply sniping.
That he thinks General Hayden and AG Mukasey are "highly respected and nonpolitical officials with little in the way of partisanship or ideology in their backgrounds" is both hilarious and typical of Republicans, one of whose faults is to idealise anyone who is in position of authority and who agrees with them. Nevertheless, his point remains valid: the Democrats of the current Congress have, for the most part, proven themselves incapable of accomplishing anything in foreign policy, most notably the simplest (one would think) of tasks: describing a concrete, practical, detailed alternative to the policies of the current administration. In large part, I would argue, this comes down to one of the great weaknesses of the US legislative system when compared to the British system.
You can argue back and forth about the relative merits of fixed elections versus at-will elections, or the system of vesting executive power in the head of the legislature rather than in a separate elected officer, but one place where the British Parliament has it all over the US government is in leadership.
A party in Parliament has a leader, and there is almost never *any* question as to who that leader is. It can sometimes change rapidly. And it often changes violently when it becomes apparent that the population feel the party has lost direction and show signs of wanting to change it out. But Parliament is rarely in position the Democrats are in now and have been since they "took power" in 2006--floundering and unable to decide what direction to move in. And the longer they are unable to form a coherent policy, the shorter the patience of the American people for the Democratic Party will be. And at some point someone will take advantage of that gap in realistic alternatives. The Iraq War may, indirectly, lead to something we have not seen in over 100 years--the emergence of a new political party.
That he thinks General Hayden and AG Mukasey are "highly respected and nonpolitical officials with little in the way of partisanship or ideology in their backgrounds" is both hilarious and typical of Republicans, one of whose faults is to idealise anyone who is in position of authority and who agrees with them. Nevertheless, his point remains valid: the Democrats of the current Congress have, for the most part, proven themselves incapable of accomplishing anything in foreign policy, most notably the simplest (one would think) of tasks: describing a concrete, practical, detailed alternative to the policies of the current administration. In large part, I would argue, this comes down to one of the great weaknesses of the US legislative system when compared to the British system.
You can argue back and forth about the relative merits of fixed elections versus at-will elections, or the system of vesting executive power in the head of the legislature rather than in a separate elected officer, but one place where the British Parliament has it all over the US government is in leadership.
A party in Parliament has a leader, and there is almost never *any* question as to who that leader is. It can sometimes change rapidly. And it often changes violently when it becomes apparent that the population feel the party has lost direction and show signs of wanting to change it out. But Parliament is rarely in position the Democrats are in now and have been since they "took power" in 2006--floundering and unable to decide what direction to move in. And the longer they are unable to form a coherent policy, the shorter the patience of the American people for the Democratic Party will be. And at some point someone will take advantage of that gap in realistic alternatives. The Iraq War may, indirectly, lead to something we have not seen in over 100 years--the emergence of a new political party.
