And it devolved from there. The Republicans in Congress, afraid to cross a man who has publicly stated he wants president Obama to fail, cleaving to an identity defined by the unwillingness to cooperate, may now be removed almost entirely from the process.
Senior members of the Obama administration are pressing lawmakers to use a shortcut to drive the president’s signature initiatives on health care and energy through Congress without Republican votes, a move that many lawmakers say would fly in the face of President Obama’s pledge to restore bipartisanship to Washington.
Because the opposition party is in such poor shape, and their current batch of policy ideas range from noxious to pernicious, it may seem like a quick and easy way to push through Obama’s agenda. And in the short run, it may even prove to be a good thing. But the memory of Tom Delay’s cowing of minority Democrats is too fresh for the worry that the oppressed will in short order become the oppressors not to rise to the surface. If the national GOP, already in shambles, is dealt the coup de grace, would one or more other parties rise to represent something other than the centrist Democratic line, or would the party in power use every institutional advantage to marginalize dissent? These are dangers inherent to a shortcut like that. Even someone who on the main supports where Obama is trying to steer the country – as I do – should recognize the corrupting influence of power with few checks and balances.
