Two Minor Thoughts

1) Pursuant to my thoughts about pointless discussions and fundamental values, what happens if you have a policy situation that both requires action by the federal government and requires the settling of a fundamental-values-level disagreement before you can address it, and the veto players in the political system cannot agree on one fundamental value? Answer: failure happens. In some countries, the solution to this is that it is simply not allowed to happen, because one party is always in total control of the government. In this country, we don't do that, and if the three Houses, one White and two of Congress, are held by different parties there's nothing you can really do to guarantee that a shared fundamental value will exist among those three players. We will have that system over the next two years, and if something comes up that requires legislation to address it and also requires a fundamental value to underpin it, we're going to get legislation that nobody much likes. But we have this peculiar institution in this country that allows our system to be paralytically unable to settle on one set of values even if one party holds all three Houses overwhelmingly. It's silly, and it's senseless, and we should be rid of it. (The filibuster, of course.)

2) One key moment in Newt Gingrich's fall from grace involved his conduct on Air Force One, when he was perceived to have given President Clinton a snub, a childish snub, over the government shutdown.

Today John Boehner refused an invitation to Air Force One, to come to this memorial to mourn the tragedy and celebrate the victims' lives, choosing instead to attend his scheduled fundraiser cocktail gala. Just sayin'.