Earlier this month, I suggested that ?Anna Quindlen?s cluelessness would be a welcome alternative? to some piece of vaguely pro-Communist silliness on Newsweek?s back page.
Little did I know Ms. Quindlen would resurface this week with the magazine?s lead story, which tries to paint a happy face on President Obama?s lack of progress in advancing his policy agenda.
We?re treated to this history lesson:
Checks and balances: that’s how we learn about it in social-studies class, and in theory it is meant to guard against a despotic executive, a wild-eyed legislature, an overweening judiciary. And it’s also meant to safeguard the rights of the individual; as James Madison, president and father of the Constitution, once said, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” But what our system has meant during the poisonous partisan civil war that has paralyzed Washington in recent years is that very little of the big stuff gets done. It simply can’t.
It?s funny that the Founders? debilitating system of checks and balances didn?t stop George W. Bush from ruining the country with his ultra-right wing policies. At least that?s the impression Quindlen and company left repeatedly with their Bush-era columns.
