Partisanship Run Amok
Jules Witcover

Barack Obama, who came to town to change the way Washington works, has to be particularly dismayed at how partisanship not only has survived but has thrived under his presidency. Whatever the ultimate outcome of the federal debt limit fiasco, it's been the same old story, with a vengeance.

The House Republicans, in disarray because of tea party members still stomping and holding their breath for the whole loaf, have seemed in the last days to be determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

After all, both the House and Senate prices for raising the limit and avoiding federal bankruptcy have been the baseline Republican objectives of deep spending cuts and no tax increases. The Democrats have been left trying to ward off a second round of fiasco over the same arguments in the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign.

Boehner's backing and filling have made him look like a shepherd racing around after errant members of his flock, yet the barn has been within easy reach. As for Obama, he has to cope with his own grumbling liberals who have wondered how much more of the farm he intends to give away.

The president has repeated that when the people voted for divided government last November by turning the House over to the Republicans, they didn't vote for "dysfunctional" government. But the very nature of the tea party message was Howard Beale's rant in "Network": "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore." Mad at what? It didn't matter; it was a primeval cry against life's perceived inequities.

To the dire warnings that failure to raise the debt limit would cause further chaos in the economy, the answer has run from denial from the likes Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann to "So what?" Obama has been cast as the boy who cried wolf, despite heightened pleas for sanity from Wall Street bigwigs whose religion always has preached government getting out of the way.

Yet, for all that, it's not inconceivable for all the concessions that Obama has made that he could emerge the political winner, or at least not the bloodied loser, in the whole fray. Boehner's 11th-hour blundering, or that of his leadership head-counters, forced him into embarrassing semi-public pleading with his wandering sheep, countering the success already achieved by him in negotiations with Obama.

One potential benefit from the whole mess is that it has identified at least two opportunities for the president and Congress to take action to minimize more of the same once the dust has cleared. One potential and more likely outcome is that neither the White House nor Capitol Hill will address them.

The first is the federal debt limit itself. No other major industrial nation ties its own hands in the ability to meet the fiscal responsibilities that Congress itself has imposed through the authorization and appropriations process. A responsible president would seek, and a responsible Congress would eliminate, periodic votes to raise it.

The second is the straitjacket the Senate continues to tolerate in the requirement of a supermajority of 60 votes to avoid a filibuster on legislation. The once-rare actual use of the filibuster on controversial bills has become a frequently used mere threat, choking the Senate's ability to do business with nary a senatorial talkathon.

Considering the current temper on Capitol Hill, however, and the approaching national elections already cranking up that will affect not only the presidency but also all House members and one-third of the Senate, the chances of the good legislators putting aside the rigid partisanship seem about as likely as the once-mighty Washington Redskins winning the Super Bowl with a hapless owner and without a top-rung quarterback.

There was a better time here when there existed a range of political thought and motivation in both parties that encouraged a comfortable center in each, where the label moderate was not a dirty word. Civility and compromise went hand-in-hand, and Washington worked. Now, in pleading for both, President Obama comes off as naive, which is unfortunate for him, and for the country.

Twitter: @ihavenet

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