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POWER AND PRINCIPLES. Sebastian Mallaby complains that Democrats are poised to possibly win the House back next month yet have no agenda or philosophical principles on which to govern should they win. As ever, there is a double-standard at work here. Republicans are typically given a pass for governing from an agenda unmoored from their small-government, strong-defense, fiscal responsibility platitudes -- indeed, those platitudes are championed as evidence that the party "knows what it stands for." It�s as if the espousal of principles matters more than adherence to them. Democrats, meanwhile, are expected to have a detailed philosophy and point-by-point plan that�s internally consistent. Power for power�s sake is only acceptable when Republicans rule.
Consider two great, recent pieces written about the face of Republican congressional power. The first, by our own Sam Rosenfeld, is perhaps as good a summary of the nature of contemporary congressional power as any I�ve read. The second is Zachary Roth and Cliff Schecter�s piece on what a Senate Republican majority might look like under Bill Frist�s expected replacement, the oleaginous Mitch McConnell. Notice how similar their respective assessments of DeLay and McConnell are:
Rosenfeld:
If DeLay�s political legacy -- extreme when it adhered to actual conservative ideological tenets, merely corrupt and venal when it frequently veered away from them -- is odious to liberals, his institutional legacy would seem nearly as lamentable. Over 12 years, Republicans have carried out a remarkable (if incomplete) transformation of Congress into a ruthlessly partisan legislating body, in which the minority party is shut out of the process as a rule, power is heavily concentrated in the party leadership, and deliberation, compromise, and basic civility are left on the scrap heap.Roth and Schecter:
That someone with McConnell�s political style stands to assume what is arguably the third-most-powerful elected post in the federal government speaks volumes about the state of the contemporary Republican Party -- and about Washington in general. McConnell is a staunch conservative and a master of procedure, but no piece of landmark legislation bears his name.Different leaders with different bios from different chambers, one past and one future, and yet the story is the same: Not much in the way of policy or agenda aside from the exercise of power on behalf of unvarnished partisanship. That ought to offend Mallaby�s sensibilities. But it�s always sexier to complain about the supposed lack of agenda of a non-majority than the failed agenda of those who actually exercise power.
--Tom Schaller
