Friedman "X-Ray of Dysfunction"

[handmade34]

we already know, but worth the read...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/opinion/10friedman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

"I still find it amazing that with all the climate, security, health and financial interests America has in reducing its dependence on oil, our Congress could not work out an energy bill over the past two years — especially when China, Japan and the European Union are all hurdling ahead on clean-tech. The fact that we failed to pass an energy bill — cap-and-trade, a carbon tax, efficiency standards, I don’t care which — is actually a reflection of a broader U.S. power failure. It is the failure of our political system to unite, even in a crisis, to produce the policy responses America needs to thrive in the 21st century... ...X-ray of the dysfunctions eating away at our future: politicians who only know how to read polls, never change them; media outlets serving political parties; special interests buying senators; mindless partisanship; an epidemic of low expectations for our government. And us — we elected them all, and we tolerate them...
(noted in the essay)
*Mindless tribal partisanship
*A TV network acting as the political enforcer of the Republican Party
*Special interests buying policy
*Politicians who put their interests before the country’s
*A political system that cannot manage multiple policy shifts at once — even though it needs to
I just have one thing to add: We need to do better."



http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/11/101011fa_fact_lizza


"...By late January, 2009, the details of the Lieberman-McCain bill had been almost entirely worked out, and Lieberman began showing it to other Senate offices in anticipation of a February press conference... ...But the negotiations stalled as the bill moved forward. In Arizona, a right-wing radio host and former congressman, J. D. Hayworth, announced that he was considering challenging McCain in the primary. McCain had never faced a serious primary opponent for his Senate seat, and now he was going to have to defend his position on global warming to hard-core conservative voters. The Republican Party had grown increasingly hostile to the science of global warming and to cap-and-trade, associating the latter with a tax on energy and more government regulation. Sponsoring the bill wasn’t going to help McCain defeat an opponent to his right...By the end of February, McCain was starting to back away from his commitment to Lieberman..."