The whole process, in which senators facing time pressure to get things done finally got down to the business of doing them, made a mockery of the way that institution normally operates. Arizona Republican Jon Kyl more or less singlehandedly kept the Start treaty from a vote for months; his colleague John McCain, followed by a few other Republicans, did the same on don’t ask, don’t tell. But with the congressional session ending, both of these allegedly controversial measures passed with reasonably comfortable super-majorities. All the so-called principled opposition was just a small handful of people gumming up the works. And the 9/11 first responders’ bill, which languished for months or even years, was resolved swiftly through old-fashioned compromise on costs. (It provides $4.3 billion over five years, instead of $7.4 billion of eight years as originally proposed.)
Obama’s Second Act? by Michael Tomasky
Can someone smart come up with a plan to have a lame duck congress all the time?
