The System Doesn't Suck, People Suck

Normally, I am not a big fan of E.J. Dionne, but this time he hits one out of the park when he talks about the people who blame the "system" for legislative or political failures--such as immigration or Social Security reform.

We have become political hypochondriacs. We seem eager to declare that "the system" has come down with some dread disease, to proclaim that an ideological "center" blessed by the heavens no longer exists, and woe unto us. An imperfect immigration bill is pulled from the Senate floor and you'd think the Capitol dome had caved in.

It's all nonsense, but it is not harmless nonsense. The tendency to blame the system is a convenient way of leaving no one accountable. Those who offer this argument can sound sage without having to grapple with the specifics of any piece of legislation. There is the unspoken assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed centrists might be.

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Maybe you would place blame elsewhere. But please identify some real people or real political forces and not just some faceless entity that you call the system. Please be specific, bearing in mind that when hypochondriacs misdiagnose vague ailments they don't have, they often miss the real ones.

Dionne faults the President, and certainly the President must shoulder a fair amount of blame. The President may even be willing to admit his failures, but those admissions would begin and end with him. Nearly every Congressman and Seantor have not shown any courage when it comes to admitting their role in the gridlock and partisan pummeling that have become the coin of the realm on Capitol Hill.