Obama and Congress

David Brooks says “The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance.” Jon Chait says we can’t blame Obama for this, it’s congress that’s asserted its dominance:

Now, it’s true that, when Congress was controlled by the GOP, it generally followed the lead of the Bush administration. But, as I’ve argued, Democrats do things differently. To say that this is Obama’s choice is to miss the power dynamic. If Democrats in Congress decided their role was to advance the agenda Obamwas elected on,then we wouldn’t have an era of Congressional dominance. Instead large numbers of Democrats in Congress have decided to protect their own priveleges and those of their affiliated interest groups. If Obama had some method to persuade his fellow Democrats to instead act in the general interest of the country or their party, he would have done it.

One thing that I do think is missing from this, however, is the Republicans. Specifically the group of Republicans—Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Judd Gregg, Richard Burr, Mel Martinez, George Voinovich, Richard Lugar, Chuck Grassley, and John Ensign—who represent seats that Obama won in the election. When Bush was President, it wasn’t just that Republicans saw it as their job to push the Bush agenda, Democrats who represented areas where Bush was popular were reluctant to stand in his way. You’re not seeing much of that on the GOP side these days. And I don’t feel like you’re seeing much in the way of deliberate efforts by the White House to bring pressure to bear on that crew.

The other thing is that the White House hasn’t so much as offered up a teensy-weensy whine about the fact that the Senate has changed the rules and decided to start applying a routine 60-vote supermajority requirement to his nominees and legislation. Obama is an ex-senator and perhaps as such has personally bought into the bizarre self-justifying myths that circulate in the world’s worst deliberative body. But I think that this is a giant mistake. The President should be pointing out that majority-supported policy ideas and nominees are being bottled up by insane procedural tactics.