Since Peter Suderman linked to me yesterday as an example of liberals being unhappy with the health-care reform effort, I thought I might respond to his assertion that this isn't a failure of leadership, but "a feature of democratic politics" which is a common refrain from libertarians and small-government types: Things would run much smoother without the messy business of politics getting in the way.
"It is not a matter of deciding on the 'right' policy and then making it so -- even when your party controls the White House, the House, and the Senate," he writes, which, again, is typical of those who do not believe the government can tackle any area of public policy without becoming utterly corrupted by its own devices. But it also misreads the intentions of liberals, who very much want to get the policy right, even if the more practical among us realize the ideal legislation will never emerge out of a place like the U.S. Senate. And indeed, the main complaint from liberals closely following this issue is that the Senate is major obstacle. Its anachronisms, seniority system, and anti-majoritarianism have been identified as the prime reasons health-care reform will either die or pass in some watered-down form that does little to fix the problems it was designed to address.
Like Suderman, I take as axiomatic Churchill's quip about democracy being the worst form of government and therefore I have no choice but to accept the reality and ugliness of politics. But that doesn't translate for me into a desire for laissez-faire government. Rather it highlights the need for institutional reform, because it's the institutions which are making it difficult to achieve needed public policy legislation.
--Mori Dinauer
