A paralysing loss of memory

Our comrades at MyDD quote the New York Times (see below) with distaste, in a post titled Perhaps it's Time for The New York Times to Retake Congress 101:

Yet after six weeks in power, the Democratic-led House and Senate have yet to agree on a final bill. The obstacle is the same one that stymied Republicans time after time when they had control: paralyzingly thin margins in the Senate.

Jonathan Singer, of MyDD, lays bare the silliness of the NYT's reasoning that six weeks of power should suffice for the Democrats to produce and pass the relevant bill. What Singer and the NYT fail to note is that the Republicans were not much stymied by "thin margins" when they were in control. Let us review just a few of the greatest hits:

• The threat of the nuclear option against Democratic attempts at filibuster
• The "compromise" of the Gang of 14, result: confirmation of both Roberts and Alito (the latter of Concerned Alumni of Princeton fame, the concern being the grave danger of women entering the august institution)
• Extension of tax cuts, the so called Patriot Act
• The Torture Bill of 2006
• And that wonderful bit of midnight legislation: The Terri Schaivo Act

WireTap magazine sums it up rather neatly (along with providing other examples of the output of the wondrous 109th):

It could be argued that if the 109th Congress wasn't entangled in so many schemes, scams and sex scandals, it might actually be able to meet more and do a better job of helping the American population withstand a full frontal assault on their rights and checkbooks. But that would be jacking into the type of hyperreal matrix that talking heads and other media hacks love to fortify in lieu of stating the obvious, which is not so glamorous or complex.

The reality is this: The 109th Congress is far from a clot of "Do-Nothing" politicians. Having secured a majority in both houses and a strategical collusion with the executive branch, they have done something no other Congress has managed to do in American history: Give the president of the United States power and abilities -- to monitor, to prosecute, to incarcerate, to torture, to kill -- that approach those of the most totalitarian regimes in recent memory. It may not be 1948 or 1984 anymore, but the new millennium, with the help of America's elected representatives, is primed to look more and more like a pre-millennial dictatorship than ever. And for that, you can thank the fighting 109th, the most defeated Congress in American history.

See also: Matt Taibbi "Worst Congress Ever".