"The System Works"

I think Charles gets it right in his article "The System Works."

Some highlights:

"Of all the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom in today’s Washington, the most lazy, stupid, and ubiquitous is that our politics is broken. On the contrary. Our political system is working well (I make no such claims for our economy), indeed, precisely as designed — profound changes in popular will translated into law that alters the nation’s political direction."

"The conventional complaint is that the process was ugly. Big deal. You want beauty? Go to a museum. Democratic politics was never meant to be an exercise in aesthetics."

Read any American presidential/political biography from any time and you will read about name calling, bickering, all that stuff. There was no "happy time" in politics. People are always fighting about this stuff. Peacefully fighting, that is.

Gridlock also prevents stupid decisions from being made. Or at least gives us time to analyze them if we wish and then enter the debate before they are whisked on through onto the books.