Has America become “ungovernable”?
posted at 10:55 am on December 12, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
So says Matthew Yglesias, who’s dismayed that the progressive agenda has ground to a halt. Instead of taking the correct lesson from this — that Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid overreached and assumed a mandate that didn’t exist — Yglesias blames America instead. He focuses his ire on Mitch McConnell, who leads only 40 Republicans in the Senate, but applies the lesson to the system:
The smarter elements in Washington DC are starting to pick up on the fact that it’s not tactical errors on the part of the president that make it hard to get things done, it’s the fact that the country has become ungovernable. …
We’re suffering from an incoherent institutional set-up in the senate. You can have a system in which a defeated minority still gets a share of governing authority and participates constructively in the victorious majority’s governing agenda, shaping policy around the margins in ways more to their liking. Or you can have a system in which a defeated minority rejects the majority’s governing agenda out of hand, seeks opening for attack, and hopes that failure on the part of the majority will bring them to power. But right now we have both simultaneously. It’s a system in which the minority benefits if the government fails, and the minority has the power to ensure failure. It’s insane, and it needs to be changed.
Funny, but I don’t recall Yglesias demanding those changes while Democrats were in the minority in the Senate. Tom Daschle was no less obstructionist, and Democrats managed to kneecap George Bush on judicial appointments without writing cris des coeurs over ungovernable America. In fact, Democrats openly bragged about using the Senate’s ancient methods of corralling the majority, even on the novel issue of judicial appointments where such procedures had rarely been used. And yet George Bush and the Republicans still managed to govern, and that was just a couple of years ago.
So what changed? Glenn Reynolds, who predicted the “ungovernable” argument three months ago, points to a comment onYglesias’ site:
“There have been no major institutional changes in the United States government in recent history that have caused it to ‘become ungovernable.’ There just isn’t enough political support to enact various news laws and policies that you favor. Tough. If you hadn’t become seduced by the delusion that Obama is a ‘progressive’ and that last year’s election represented some kind of historic realignment in favor of ‘progressive’ policies you might have seen this coming.”
Well, there has been one change in government, as Moe Lane notes: Democrats are in charge for the first time in 15 years.
What I find so laughable about this complaint is that Democrats have something Republicans never had — 60 votes in the Senate (and for that matter, a 75-seat majority in the House). Mitch McConnell, the primary target of Yglesias’ ire and his Exhibit A of ungovernability, simply can’t stop anything the Democrats want to pass, if they unite as a caucus. The problem for Yglesias, Obama, and Harry Reid is that their agenda is so far Left that even some Democrats object to it.
Obama and Reid thought that red-state Senators would act like San Francisco liberals once Obama took office, but forgot to account for the fact that they represent real constituents who don’t support the progressive agenda. At all. And some of those Democrats would like to win their next election and have to answer to center-right electorates that don’t like government interventions, high taxes, and economy-killing attacks on the energy industry.
And so with 60 Democratic votes in the Senate, the 111th Congress has ground to a halt. That’s not McConnell’s fault. It’s the incompetence of the Democratic leadership that fundamentally misunderstood the mandate from the last two elections, that miscalculated the positions of its own members in the Senate, and thought they could cram down a hard-Left agenda without even bothering to consult and court the minority. Republican leadership before 2006 certainly fumbled the ball, but they had no trouble governing. Why? Because they didn’t arrogantly assume that they could do it by themselves, and they didn’t offer radical expansions of government that went out of favor with the electorate long before Bill Clinton declared that “the era of Big Government is over.”
I wrote about incompetence as a theme of this presidency three months ago. It’s become a theme of Congressional leadership as well. Voters will get the opportunity to grade the Pelosi-Reid-Obama agenda as well as their competence in about 11 months, and Democrats can expect a rather harsh report card.
Update: Ta-Nehisi Coates notes that Yglesias did favor dumping the filibuster in 2005, but that’s at least somewhat off point. Did Matt consider America “ungovernable” when Democrats used it to block Republican efforts, and Bush’s judicial appointments? My criticism wasn’t about Yglesias’ position on the filibuster specifically, but his declaration of America as “ungovernable,” which should be obvious above.
Blowback
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LOL
I love how liberals never pause to think about why our system of federal government is designed to make it hard to increase it’s own power.
Hint: It’s a feature, not a bug.
Joe Caps on December 12, 2009 at 1:05 PM
That, and that pesky old parchment written by dead angry white slave-owning males: The Constitution of the United States.
Actually, I believe the Dhims know the mood of the Country, and the People are really stopping them. Despite all their allies out there, they’re now stalled. Their problem is how to keep this Union, as it exists, under their thumb.
There is talk of secession in many circles, them ever-widening. If I’m not mistaken, there’s an actual political party in Alaska, however small, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
The Left, of its own, cannot keep this Union as it exists–having 50 States and the population to keep Washington’s income.
Imagine if just Hawaii secedes. There goes Pearl Harbor–an important naval base with its ancillary air bases.
Secession of just one State can ruin all Obowma’s grandiose plans.
All the Left has right now is whining, hoping to capitalize on some form of guilt in the populace.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:07 PM
In all truth, it’s really the mods and independents who are screwing the Dem plans.
Remember how the Dems loved and basically won last time because of mods and independents? Now, Dem failures are because of Cons?
Bullsh*t! If Cons are a minority, and the Dems won because of Indies and Mods, then it’s reasonable to believe the Dems are now losing because they couldn’t keep the Indies and Cons. Like spoiled self-serving brats, the Dems want it both ways.
Sorry, libs–the People are too savvy for you to win your new game.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:11 PM
The “smarter elements in Washington DC” voted for the same empty suit that 70% of high school dropouts voted for.
Del Dolemonte on December 12, 2009 at 1:11 PM
Fixed that for myself.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:14 PM
Thanks for admitting how dumb people who voted for O’bama are. But we knew that in November of 2008.
Del Dolemonte on December 12, 2009 at 1:16 PM
Sometimes people need to be shot with a .22 to know that next time they shouldn’t use on themselves a 12-gauge.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:19 PM
Hawaii is one of the bluest states there is. It doesn’t seem likely it would secede under current circumstances. And even if it did, what does Obama need with a Navy base?
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 1:21 PM
Ann claims she voted for McCain LOL*
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 1:22 PM
As I read this, I heard it in my head as “What does God need with a starship?”
I need to get out more!
JamesLee on December 12, 2009 at 1:23 PM
This reminds me of when Max Blumenthal was on I think Hannity, whining about how “they” won’t “let” Obama govern. He seemed to have the same idea of being president as Obama: “I’m the boss, do what I say.” Governing means building coalitions and persuading and offering incentives, not saying “I won, get over it.”
I think part of the problem is these Juicebox Mafia youths have simply not seen very much US history yet. They don’t know our system usually creaks along like it does now, and that it’s supposed to. But they have no excuse for not reading some US history before making these stupid pronouncements.
YehuditTX on December 12, 2009 at 1:23 PM
I’m feelin’ a trifecta in 2012. Question is what are going to do with it? Are we going to blow another “Contract With America” moment? It seems to me it always boils down to the economy. If you get that right you end up staying in power and have the political capital to get more stuff accomplished. Illegal immigration, School Vouchers, dismantling the failed entitlement state. You blow the economy, you’re done. They get the reins back the next cycle and we really are cooked.
speed on December 12, 2009 at 1:25 PM
Oh, I just used that as an example of the harm Dem policies can do to Washington.
I can try TX, then.
If just TX secedes, there goes Lackland AFB–the only USAF boot camp. So much for training new AF recruits. Not to mention the other military bases there.
Then what if KS secedes? How many Minuteman missile silos are either deactivated or seized by the Nation of Kansas? A good part of the US nuclear deterrent goes to hell.
Libs are soooo short-sighted. Dems are really making a mess of things, aren’t they?
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:26 PM
At least she didn’t vote for Obowma! *L*
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Yes, they have excuse: The Constitution was written by rich dead angry white slave-owning males.
That’s all a lib needs to believe.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:31 PM
Liam, are you a member of the Ed Morrissey Fan Club on Facebook?
We think Ann is :)
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 1:33 PM
I’ve watched Ann pay attention to us Cons for about a year, and she has changed a lot. Right now, I find her to be no idealogue. I knew that, by intuition or whatever someone might call it, from the time I met her when she was all kinds of liberal and junk.
Oh, I join no fan clubs. I’m just me.
What’s that line from Tom Petty? “Take me as I come ’cause I can’t stay long.”
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 1:38 PM
Wow, did someone just tap into Woodrow Wilson’s spirit? Much of what Yglesias states here reads like a page out of President Wilson’s ideas for reforming our government. The majority should not be denied because the nation is united in its will after a big election like we saw in ’08, etc, etc, blah, blah. A minority should not be allowed to defy the will of the people, blah, blah, blah.
No one should be surprised by this, and it sounds like many aren’t. This has been a standard Progressive talking point for a hundred years now.
matthewbit07 on December 12, 2009 at 1:38 PM
In the left hand we have an overreaching, incompetent Democrat majority in both houses and the white house.
In the right hand we have charges of Republican obstructionism, “party of no”, and now “ungovernable” America.
The lamestream media is telling us to look at the right hand and not the left. In fact, there is no left hand. It doesn’t exist. Trust us. We know.
SKYFOX on December 12, 2009 at 1:48 PM
That’s too bad. We would have enjoyed your company.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 1:49 PM
I just can’t get into groupthink. I have to do for myself, by myself.
That’s just me.
You’d flip to know how many Christians I piss off though I’m a Bible-thumper. I love my liberty, and groups tend to steal that away in the end. In the best of churches, too.
The Dems are a perfect example of that, and this silly notion that because the Dem demands are being fought, the American People are somehow at fault.
America is great only because of its People. Government produces nothing.
Real prosperity comes from that single man or woman who has a vision, and creates reality with it. Like jobs, a better love for family and friends. Even being able to give more, wherever, to those less fortunate.
That, to be, is liberty. And being Godly, and knowing at the same time your own place in God’s universe.
Libs like Yglesias just don’t get that.
I tell you, I wish I could feel so arrogant that I could hold some moral high ground that I could tell you what to do with your life. Power is fun!
But it ain’t me. I rather be an American than a lib. I rather fight to preserve what is better than me than steal from others like libs do.
But you know that already. You’re like that, as are so many like us.
I rather be among you as ‘just a guy’ than ever again be a lib and ‘find’ some kind of worth in a group.
This joker who slandered us and so many others needs to really find his own niche in the world, to find some true self-worth of his own self.
There’s really, truly, and seriously something wrong with him.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 2:07 PM
Sing it, Ed.
BuckeyeSam on December 12, 2009 at 2:25 PM
It’s not a groupthink kind of group. It’s more just a place for people who appreciate Ed’s writing and speaking to socialize and get to know each other better.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 2:28 PM
Of course, liberalism is a mental disorder.
Oldnuke on December 12, 2009 at 2:32 PM
Cool!
I’ll stay here, just going as I tend to do things my way. Thanks for the invite!
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Dammit, Gentlemen, we need to elect a new electorate!
DelD on December 12, 2009 at 2:38 PM
I no longer believe that. I tend to see it as a psychopathy, like among serial killers. They know right from wrong yet operate according to their whims. Everyone else be damned.
Serial killers aren’t insane. They know exactly what they’re doing. They know they’re committing crimes but do it anyway.
In sum, serial killers or those others who bilk old ladies out of their life savings with scams, libs just don’t care.
That’s not insanity. That’s just plain evil.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 2:38 PM
Typical Lib, it’s not that ‘the plan’ SUCKS, it’s the people the plan is aimed at.
So what will be the next “EXCUSE”?
GarandFan on December 12, 2009 at 2:41 PM
Your mom was a Jew
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 2:43 PM
No, he’s just very bright, has probably always been praised for being very bright, has succeeded in a system where that is important–and is, in my opinion, also not what I would call very wise and is probably what used to be called “soft”. In other words, he’s an intellectual, but one of only modest actual attainments in fields of thoughts and in other fields none other that I am aware of, and thus every time he does something like this he opens himself up to be compared to a three-year old stamping his feet.
In short, he really needed to be mentored a long time ago, as well as he needed to move from hanging on the periphery of the world of academia and to actually doing something, so that he might grow in wisdom. Instead, he was given a blog and license to prescribe. His kind has been with us always–the “Young Turk.” Or, in the case of the “Juicebox Mafia”, perhaps we should say the “Young Jurks”?
Horatius on December 12, 2009 at 2:50 PM
It’s CUDA TIME
Metro on December 12, 2009 at 2:53 PM
Nothing can me more ignorant or absent reality than an intellectual. They can rationalize themselves into or out of anything.
But what then comes of plain old wisdom?
I rather wisdom than being intellectual. Wisdom, to me, means ‘knowledge applied’. If a lib can’t get past the empirical, then that lib is an idiot, in my book. He/she reverts to being a fool.
Yglesias never got past being empirical, he never expanded his mind. He never became ‘enightened’.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 2:58 PM
I don’t buy the “ungovernable” whine. I believe the problem is that a sizeable portion of the American voting public has become ineducable through sloth and by design of the education establishment.
ya2daup on December 12, 2009 at 3:01 PM
For you libs:
It’s THOUGHTLESS on your part to believe your agenda only fails because of opposition by a ‘minority’.
You either have the savvy to make your thing happen, or you don’t. You brats scream we Cons are tiny, to be ignored and vilified, but when your plan stalls you attack us for having a power you said over and over we don’t have.
Who are you trying to kid? What is WRONG with you?
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:02 PM
I would debate that, Friend. What I see here is that, despite the lib dumbing-down of our America for decades, is that the American people remain savvy anyway.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:05 PM
buy and stock pile ammo
Onager on December 12, 2009 at 3:08 PM
Yep. We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Just as long as it gets done. I’m no more interested in sharing a politico-legal governance framework with Matthew Yglesias than I am in sharing one with Osama bin Laden. F both of them.
venividivici on December 12, 2009 at 3:08 PM
We keep our liberty or we die trying.
I give no quarter nor do I ask of it from the enemy.
I’ll die by your side or win with you in the same way.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:17 PM
I have yet to see a lib say he/she would die for his/her cause.
Yet, all the time, I see Americans on this site be willing to give up their lives for fellow Patriots and their fellow Citizens.
Libs got nothing on us, Friends!
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:24 PM
You’re always so melodramatic Liam ;)
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 3:29 PM
This is mostly piss and moan because radial liberalism didn’t turn out to be acceptable after all, which the radical liberals in charge now knew all along and unless some radical opposition jumps right in their faces a radical liberal nation is what we’ve got to look forward to.
Speakup on December 12, 2009 at 3:33 PM
It looks like 2010 is going to be a big moment for the political aspect of the push-back against statism. We’ll see how far that gets us. One of the main problems is that a lot of future spending at the Federal level is “locked in” via entitlements, so unless people are willing to give up their claims to those entitlements, more money is going to be required from the working population to pay those benefits.
As a Gen Xer myself, I say if we just “do away” with every Leftist Baby Boomer, we can balance the books. Then, we shut down new entrants into entitlement programs and their fate will serve as a cautionary tale for the Leftists behind them. Will the world really miss Margaret Carlson or Joe Klein or any of the millions of Boomer idiots who think like them? I think not.
venividivici on December 12, 2009 at 3:33 PM
I’m honest, hon. I’m direct, and I’m blunt. I’m a rebel all my life.
And I mean every word I say.
Want the link to my dad who’s honored in the WWI Memorial?
I rather die fighting in combat for the liberty of my children than live on my knees.
Why do you mock me?
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:34 PM
Don’t forget what Patton said “The idea isn’t to die for your country, it’s to make the other guy die for his.”
venividivici on December 12, 2009 at 3:35 PM
Nothing in a free society is ‘locked in’.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:36 PM
That’s why I intimated we kill them first. You and me–we either win against them or we die trying.
I’ll cover your back or fight at your side any time, anywhere.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:37 PM
I would love to see that!
I wasn’t mocking you, just teasing. Sorry.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 3:45 PM
You really need to be more clear and precise–just an idea.
Got you.
If I ever have to fight with you against liberals in a firefight, you and me will either win together or go down at the same time.
Please meet my dad:
http://www.wwiimemorial.com/registry/search/pframe.asp?HonoreeID=387632&popcount=1&tcount=1
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 3:50 PM
True, but even people who are sympathetic to the notion of Constitutionally-derived governance would need to be “made whole” of the money they’ve had sucked in to the Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid money pit. Since that money’s already been spent, it’s going to be tough to figure out how to manage that transition.
I’m all for killing them first. As Clauswitz said, “War is politics by other means”, so, if politics doesn’t work, it’s war. I’ll fight alongside anyone who agrees with Lincoln that government of, by and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
venividivici on December 12, 2009 at 3:52 PM
Thanks Liam
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 4:01 PM
So which part of government studies did he miss ?
I was told in 5th grade civics that our Constitution was designed to make doing “big things” really hard.
Welcome to reality, dumbass “intellectual”
J_Crater on December 12, 2009 at 4:02 PM
For me, it’s not that he’s somehow honored to be my dad. It’s that I’m honored to be his son.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 4:04 PM
Liam, Ann is in the abortion thread. I don’t think she is who you think she is.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 4:18 PM
A republic with a representative democratic system with division of powers and checks and balances between them, and that utilizes a system of sovereign states within a Union is not made to get a fast, efficient or even half-way capable government.
If you want fast, efficient, and capable governments, then look to the USSR, Fascist Italy and any number of other dictatorial and authoritarian governments. Whenever you hear that a path is being ‘obstructed’ from a progressive, what you are hearing is that the ‘will to power’ of the elite is being thwarted by the great unwashed masses. If they would just join the elite to be ruled, then things would just go so swimmingly and those masses would never, ever have anything to worry about again.
Don’t mind the blood spilled to get there. Nor the political prisoners. Nor the State police that are ever seeking out those that disagree. But then the elite never worry about those things and they so easily make sure that those who bring them to power get to be the first to taste the lash of it, as they are a threat to those so installed. So many broken eggs, but we never do get to see an omelette. The Left never do read history and wish to be doomed to repeat it.
ajacksonian on December 12, 2009 at 4:20 PM
A little more hopenchange mixed in with a few more gallons of Koolaide will fix everyone.
katiejane on December 12, 2009 at 4:20 PM
This has to be the stupidest quote of 2009, right along with NYT’s Krugman statement that a form of Chinese ‘totalitarianism’ in the U.S. w/b ok for a while.
Matthew Yglesias is either dumb, dumb, dumb or plays dumb really good because things don’t go his way.
He makes the perfect argument that the people, the voters are actually still in charge. I often question if that is still the case, but he made a good one for it.
Hypocrisy is indignant because, as Ed said, this whiner was nowhere to be found with inverse numbers.
Schadenfreude on December 12, 2009 at 4:22 PM
She is what she is, and that’s her place as she chooses to be. I’m well aware of her.
Many here who think my support of her, far as I decide it to be, makes me a troll, too.
At the same time, my avowed HATE of libs as I say all the time makes me almost a demon in libs’ eyes. But they don’t believe in demons, do they?
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 4:31 PM
Liam, still you should take a look. She’s not turning like you think.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 4:35 PM
She holds views as she wishes, as she feels. In the end, that’s her right.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 4:37 PM
And when I get to it, I’ll talk with her.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 4:38 PM
Sorry for being so long in response.
I read articles and comments from right, middle, and left most of the day. I think this was on an article on OpenLeft or Hullabaloo but can’t swear so at this point. Sorry that I didn’t bookmark it.
That Hullabaloo blog is a scary place with agitators for complete overthrow of the government as we know it. Now I am talking about the commenters and not the actual blog author.
Greyledge Gal on December 12, 2009 at 4:40 PM
This was a trial balloon floated by nutcases while Clinton was president. It didn’t gain credence then and can’t gain traction now.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 4:42 PM
Hmmm, as I recall, the lame stream media was pushing the same garbage during the Carter Administration. That the country was ungovernable and we should do away with the Presidency.
Why is it that this idea is only floated out with a failed Liberal Presidency? The answer is it strikes at the core of the Liberal mindset. If we the power elites, Ivy League educated, better then the great unwashed can not govern properly, then no one is able to do it. Their arrogance –
Does Harvard really teach it?– is beyond measure. They have no faith in the American people or the American system of government. Both get in the way of remaking the American system in the utopian ideal they would create for us. Just like Lenin did for Russia.EliTheBean on December 12, 2009 at 4:44 PM
I wish you were on Facebook so I could talk with you in private.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 4:46 PM
So the present “leadership” can’t govern the USoA?
Ya think?
Methinks they want to Rule the country, not govern, and, as everbody knows, we conservatives/libertartians are just unruly.
davidk on December 12, 2009 at 4:47 PM
That rings a bell. It seems to me, as I recall, that is what some people were saying when Carter the First was President.
MB4 on December 12, 2009 at 4:47 PM
I have a Facebook account. Find me, in Buffalo. Look for Liam with the pic of The Crow.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 4:49 PM
Believe it or not, as “Senators”, both O’bama and Uncle Joe Biden voted for the Akaka Bill which its sponsor admitted could allow Hawai’i to secede from the US.
Of course the Left gave them a pass for that in 2008, while at the same time lambasting Sarah Palin’s husband for advocating Alaskan secession.
Del Dolemonte on December 12, 2009 at 4:49 PM
Maybe they forgot to sing “Kumbaya” ?
J_Crater on December 12, 2009 at 4:54 PM
I can only find groups with those search words.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 4:59 PM
I can only find groups with those search words.AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 4:59 PM
Try again, Buffalo, NY
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 5:03 PM
Try Liam F, and work from there.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 5:05 PM
Why in the world would any American want to be governed?
obladioblada on December 12, 2009 at 5:10 PM
It’s the Chicago way!
Now go submit yourself for arrest.
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 5:12 PM
Nope :(
Maybe you can look for me on Ed’s fan group. You don’t need to join to browse members. I’m CY.
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 5:13 PM
Please toss that URL again, would you?
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 5:15 PM
Screw games: liam459@yahoo.com
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 5:20 PM
Here
AsianGirlInTights on December 12, 2009 at 5:22 PM
/this is funny. The founders intentionally set up the government for gridlock so that only a supermajority could change the course of the country it was set upon.
Gridlock is good for freedom
unseen on December 12, 2009 at 5:24 PM
Gotyuou on Facebook at last!
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 5:30 PM
Be careful, Pasty Matty can hold guns.
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/punisher.jpg
rhodeymark on December 12, 2009 at 6:02 PM
I’m sure s/o my age or older has already said this in comments: the media regularly ran stories like this during the Carter failure. Job too big, ungovernable, etc. But with Carter, these things appeared much later into his first term.
What I take from this is–the lefties are afraid that Obama is a lame duck one-termer.
james23 on December 12, 2009 at 6:04 PM
We’ve got a complete gang of drunken lords in Congress with criminally insane personalities, tendencies and histories;
Does this look like any resemblance of what our country is supposed to be involved in?
REMEMBER ROME?
Cybergeezer on December 12, 2009 at 6:19 PM
So were the Pandercrats keeping Bush from governing? Or does it just break down when Pubs are in the minority.
And the whole think about “defeated minority” as if all the Republicans ran together. There is a sense that I can accept that Pubs are a “defeated minority”, but maybe just maybe, the country wanted to be progressive enough to have elected an African Kenyan president but not so progressive that we take over corporations and banks and the free market. Thus progression was desired, but at the level PRESENTED during the campaign: “John McCain and Barack Obama will both let you keep your guns…”
They want to take the vote of Americans for all the things that were concealed from the voters, and disputed at “Fight the Smears” website and denied, denied, denied. 10 months after the government muscled in to being the in the business of making cars, we are considered unfair if we don’t believe the President when he says he doesn’t want to be in the business of making cars.
Axeman on December 12, 2009 at 6:23 PM
America ungovernable?
We couldn’t get that lucky.
I’ll settle for relatively ungovernable.
Meremortal on December 12, 2009 at 6:39 PM
At least the left and right can agree on one thing. The current Democrat leadership is not capable of governing this country.
pedestrian on December 12, 2009 at 6:43 PM
Before or after the Dems send the Army after us?
Liam on December 12, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Yes, if you are speaking of it as governable by extremists… and that’s always been the case. The problem with the left is that the rest of the population has never “put them in their place” – made it clear that they are welcome to sit at the dinner table, but they aren’t going to decide the menu. We sat back and let them go on and on about themselves, and even conceded parts of the country to them out of a sense of “fairness”, where they could gather with like-minded individuals and experiment with social engineering and such. Consequently, as they spilled out of their coastal enclaves and infected urban populations coast to coast while we “slept”, they’ve become so full of themselves and their elitist “we know better” garbage that they actually think the rest of us will let them complete their agenda to make the entire country in their San Francisco-socialist image. It’s only now, when they are finally forcing the rest of the population to get up off the couch and block the Messiah-Pelosi-Reid foolishness, that they are getting any sort of meaningful push-back. So thus comes the whine that the opposition of the majority (the regular non-liberal American) means the country is ungovernable, as if the people should be grateful for the left’s leadership.
The answer, of course, to all this is – no. Americans do not like elitists. Americans chafe at the thought that there is a “class” of people that are somehow smarter, “properly” educated, or “bred” to lead the rest of us.
The left would do well to look carefully at who is opposing their agenda. It’s not an “ungovernable” mob – it’s the majority of the population. We’re awake and aware, and are very impatiently waiting for the next election.
n0doz on December 12, 2009 at 6:45 PM
The answer is no, America is not ungovernable, except it may appear so when an unqualified idiot is trying to do so.
Vashta.Nerada on December 12, 2009 at 6:46 PM
BTW – AsianGirlInTights – Wow.
n0doz on December 12, 2009 at 6:47 PM
A winning campaign based on vacuous statements and lies does not yield a mandate for change. Pretending to have a mandate doesn’t make it real. Obama has seduced himself with his own fantasies that are crashing all around him as insane nonsense.
BottomLine5 on December 12, 2009 at 6:53 PM
America has always been “ungovernable”. If he was around you could ask King George about that. American’s, however, may consent to being led. Read about men like Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt (Teddy), Truman, and Reagan.
Fighton03 on December 12, 2009 at 6:59 PM
For a hustler who voted “present” the majority of time. an afternoon prayer meeting of the Blue Nuns is unmanageable.
bayview on December 12, 2009 at 7:22 PM
From the New York Times of all places:
Speaking of ungovernable, I find it interesting that liberals, the champions of “diversity”, have found out that they are the problem.
This is called “cognitive dissonance“
scotash on December 12, 2009 at 7:27 PM
Exact same thing here.
This “ungovernable” nonsense would have the Founders irate. That the democrats are so arrogant as to perceive they have a “mandate” that allows them to do whatever they wish is the absolute height of arrogance, and the hallmark of tyrants.
Sounds like familiar tyrannical ranting.
“If Germany cannot win, it can rot.”
“The German people were never deserving of me.”
- This Guy
CPL 310 on December 12, 2009 at 7:29 PM
Stalin and Mao knew how to get progressive things done.
EscapeVelocity on December 12, 2009 at 7:39 PM
Thats how every dictator explains his tyrany towards his people.
Thats how every tyrant explains his atrocities towards his subjects.
macncheez on December 12, 2009 at 7:41 PM
It’s the standard liberal problem when socialism fails, or communism fails, or their latest “leveling society’s playing field” plan ends up screwing things up worse.
They had the right ideas, but the wrong kind of people… it’s not that the plans are flawed, but that the people are insufficiently perfected for their plans to work.
So the failure of their ides that they worked to impose on your isn’t their fault for running failed plans. It’s your fault for not making their plans work because all the flaws are yours, none of the flaws are theirs.
If this plays out as I’ve seen in the past, next we’ll see a month or so of what I like to call WLB Whiny Little … um, you get the drift.
Then a new target will be found as the cause of a horrific problem nobody bothered to worry about until it became cause célèbre.
Then we’ll have a new problem that must be fixed immediately by a flawed plan that can’t possibly work and must overrule everyone’s rights…
And the circle of idiocy goes on. It’s rather beautiful really, if you can get far enough away that it doesn’t smack you in the face every couple of months.
gekkobear on December 12, 2009 at 7:50 PM
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