Sen. Carl Levin: GOP tactics 'unconscionable'

from the Detroit Free Press:



BY RON DZWONKOWSKI
FREE PRESS ASSOCIATE EDITOR


“It’s unconscionable,” Michigan Democratic U.S. Sen. Carl Levin says of the tactics of the chamber’s Republican minority to block a hearing he had scheduled. “The obstructionism has become mindless.”

Levin’s comment comes in a lengthy article in the latest (Aug. 16) edition of The New Yorker magazine by George Packer describing the general dysfunction these days in the U.S. Senate, which is often described as “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

“That is a phrase,” Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and a Senate freshman, says in the article, “that I wince each time I hear it, because the amount of real deliberation, in terms of exchange of ideas, is so limited.”

Indeed, Packer’s article, headlined “The Empty Chamber” and pegged to the debate over health care reform last spring, paints a picture of a chamber with two warring factions, each interested exclusively in its own agenda with little collegiality and members who either prefer or feel compelled to spend most of their discretionary time meeting with special interest lobbyists or raising money for political campaigns. It’s a discouraging image of democracy in an elective body that has historically produced some of America’s greatest orators, leaders and, in the case of Lyndon Johnson, legendary political operators.

Apparently not these days.

Packer recounts New Hampshire Republican Sen. Judd Gregg indignantly declaring during the health care debate: “The position on the other (Democratic) side of the aisle is: no amendments allowed, even if they are good. Obviously, they presume the Republican Party is an inconvenience. The democratic process is an inconvenience. It also appears, considering the opposition to this out in America, that the American people are an inconvenience.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20100809/BLOG2504/100809024/1322/Levin-in-article-GOP-tactics-unconscionable