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I got an extraordinary amount of very well-thought-out answers from you folks, some of which I agreed with and some of which I did not. But rather than answer points in the comments, I decided the best way to enter the conversation was to just post my answers, as I sent them off. So here is the second part of last week's column. These are my "separation of powers" answers.
OK, I fully admit that headline was too tempting for me to pass up. But I have to say, I'm not really all that interested in Senator Marco Rubio's dry mouth or the swig of bottled water he took to quench it. I leave that for others who are better equipped to offer up the proper response. Saturday Night Live and Jon Stewart, in other words.
I write this, as always, to give my honest reactions to President Obama's "State Of The Union" speech, before the inside-the-Beltway set gels on telling the rest of America what to think. This way, I am often "in the wrong" the next day, but at least you get my true feelings, uninfluenced by what others have to say about the speech.
Tomorrow night President Obama will give the first State Of The Union address of his second term. We'll all react to this speech in different ways, but the reaction of Congress will be the usual: alternating wild and raucous applause with stony glares of disapproval, depending on the particular subject being addressed. After the speech is over, Congress will go back to what it loosely calls "work," and largely ignore the speech's suggestions for legislation. Some things the president asks for will get addressed in typical roundabout fashion, but many other things will be completely dropped for political reasons of one sort or another. It didn't always used to be this way, though, at least not on the surface. Congress used to take the president a lot more seriously, which is a tradition that seems ripe for revival.
We begin with cats and birds this week. Iron-lovers across the land were dismayed by the news that the Monopoly folks were discontinuing their favorite token, but cat-lovers were enthused by the feline token which will take its place. Being America, this was done via online voting. In avian news, the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl. The bird is the word!
This is a reader-participation sort of a column. In fact, it's not really a column at all, instead just trolling for comments from you folks. Just to warn everyone up front.
President Obama ended up his first term by consolidating the job approval polling gains he made in his re-election. His numbers have settled into a new range, and were remarkably steady all month long. Obama's "second honeymoon" period with the public may not last more than a few months, but for now seems to be holding steady. With the election fading into the past, Obama's in a pretty good position right now in terms of "political capital," but this will likely change as legislative reality sets in.
It is fashionable nowadays for pundits to decry the partisan polarization in Washington, and to bemoan how "broken" Congress is. Nothing will get done with such divided government, such conventional wisdom dictates. We're in for a long and bitter two years of legislative gridlock. I try to be an eternal optimist (while still staying within the bounds of reasonableness), and I can't help but wonder if this thinking may turn out to be wrong. Perhaps -- just perhaps, mind you -- the 113th Congress will be able to actually get a few important things done.
It is the Monday after the Super Bowl, so to use an apt football metaphor, I am going to punt on today's column.
We seem to have a gang problem on Capitol Hill once again.