The failure of the 4th estate has exacerbated this problem exponentially.

A Republic such as ours depends on a well informed electorate, and it should be painfully obvious now that our press no longer servers to inform the populace; rather, it serves to advance the agenda of the corporations that own it.

Our democracy will not survice as long as corporate personhood is allowed to continue. Our electoral process has been completely and thoroughly corrupted with the incredible amounts of money being funneled into the system by corporations and their lobbyists.

Our nation of, for, and b y the people no longer exists (if it ever in fact did).

The health care reform debate is a classic case study of this. The American public wants health care reform, they want a strong public option, and they want other measure to reign in the power of the insuracne and health care cartels. Poll after poll back up this notion, and it hold true across the board: red state, blue state, metropolitan, rural... it doesn't matter, it's clear that American want real change.

So that should be the end of it, right? The clear majority of people want reform, so all our legislators have to do is craft a bill and enact it, right?

But that's not happening. Instead, we have a yearlong debate among our elected officials. Why? Isn't it clear that their constituents want this? Well the obvious answer is this health care debate is one in which the interests of the health care industry are being debated, NOT the interests of Americans.

Apologies for the numerous grammatical mistakes. This subject tends to excite me...

we know exactly what the challenges are, and have a pretty strong sense of what needs to be done

Maybe we do, but either everyone else doesn't, or has different motives.
A heath care reform bill can be meaningful and still be a bad bill.

Instead, we know exactly what the challenges are, and have a pretty strong sense of what needs to be done, but are burdened by a process that can't approve the necessary solutions.

Let me suggest we are simply burdened with what we are usually burdened with: corporate power, greed, and bought politicians refusing to address in a singular way the necessary changes in law that would make the lives of the people "happier" and the economic conditions more equitable, and the society decent, and the government a representational goddam democracy...

Nicde to see a stopped clock does indeed get it right twice a day - I wonder what the other completely-obvious thing will be?

That the system is so broken that Hiatt sees it shows that it's really really really broken!

Note Freddy's lament: "The advent of the 60-vote rule in the Senate has magnified the already formidable checks and balances built into the Constitution, with the disproportionate blocking power it awards small and rural states. Cable television and the Internet have empowered those with the greatest intensity of feeling."

Er, uh, how about Talk Radio? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

It seems Freddy and his Wpost op-eders Katherine Parker and Michael "Mushroom Cloud" Gerson don't own radios. They have never heard a talk radio host stoke intensity and incivility in our political debate, huh?. Funny how that happens. Rushbo goes nuts for 20 years on the airwaves, (the "Majority Maker" in 1994 and signed a $400 million ten year contract just recently); Glenn, Laura, Sean, and Bill O chime in 15 hours a day with vile and venom and Freddy and company aren't botherd a bit. Mmm

But the tubes on the internets. OMG, clutch the pearls, the Wpost editors and op-ed writers are feeling light headed.

But for Ezra's response to Mushroom Gerson, the Wpost is a flutter with Nervous Nellies. Damn those tubes.

You, Hiatt, citizen_pain all make good points. But there is one missing ingredient in the present debate: patience. Less than a year since Obama's inauguration, according to a recent poll a majority blames HIM for the recession! Everyone screams for the gov't to cure unemployment NOW. The incredibly complicated healthcare bill is universally described as a failure because it hasn't passed already. Come on, folks. We are blessed with incredibly talented leadership, an overwhelming majority in the House and Senate, and plenty of good ideas and good will. Let's give it a chance to work.

A country whose foundation is CORPORATE PROFITS above all else is a country that is doomed to extinction. Your country is a farce, a disgrace to this planet. One of your greatest enemies in your own corporate owned media that manipulates public perception because of the CORPORATE INTERESTS that motivate every thing in your stench of a country. And because the average intelligence of your citizens equals stupidity this manipulation is even hardly noticed. Thus, creatures like Brian Williams, et-all, make their millions through the corporations that own them, and the teachers of your kids make about $30,000 a year. Wonder what the correlation is to that and the average intelligence of your citizens ?

I was having thoughts pretty much along the lines of citizen_pain's. It's the interests of a few big corporations that are setting the boundaries of this debate. (I think it's the insurance companies and their financial partners more than the delivery parts of the health-care system, but that's a minor quibble.)

Put another way, Joe Lieberman and Blanche Lincoln are listening to a few very well-connected (and deep-pocketed) lobbyists more than they are to their constituents.

But whose fault is this? Part of the system is working as designed: the Senators are looking out for themselves. The part that isn't working is that the large mass of the people (the few noisy useful idiots excepted) are not.

It's not that tough. The average American who doesn't have health insurance knows it, and those who do have it know how tough it is to get health care when they need it and at an affordable price.

But by and large, they do little or nothing about it. Other than the very small number of committed activists, people don't write letters to their representatives or to the papers, they don't go to rallies or protests, they don't besiege local offices or harass staffers, they don't do anything they should do if they want the system to work for them. Most of them don't even bother to vote!

And into the void step the lobbyists and the useful idiots.

It's no wonder things are as bad as they are. What's a wonder is that reform has come as far as it has...

How perceptive of Hiatt the hitman to be aware of a problem that he and his paper played an important role in creating

Fred Hiatt got the basic parameter right, but missed the logical next step..

The present construct of the Senate with the 60 vote rule means that the Administration effectively can't address any major problems: health care, jobs, torture, anything. So if they don't fight it, they'll lose, and will get blamed.

Solution is to do the nuclear option presented by the GOP 3 years ago, just stop recognizing filibusters and change the rules. And fight it openly.

Politically, it would be a donny-brook, but the public in general hates Congress, so it's actually a pretty promising route. Second, people are mad - and mad people like a fight, so give to them.

The USA is an empire embarking on its death throes, and determined to take the world down with it.

"There's a growing fear that our political system simply can't function in a problem-solving capacity anymore. Given the enormity of the challenges the country faces, paralysis is a devastating condition to find ourselves in."

The only other time I heard this complaint made was back in the dark days during the Carter Administration. Back then, there was actually talk by "serious people" that the job of President was "too big" for one man to handle. The election and leadership of Ronald Reagan ended all such talk because he was bigger than the job.

Gee, I wonder what would cause such claims to surface now in the age of Obama? Could it be that the election of incompetent Democrats as President is the actual cause of the inability of our political system to respond to the challenges the country is facing? Maybe if Obama would demonstrate any kind of Presidential leadership, instead of staying curiously on the sidelines; the political system, of which he is a major player, would be able to function as intended. Just a thought. lol

I'll say Happy Thanksgiving now since I remain banned from posting from my home computer.

Chicounsel, you're right wing talking point garbage is about as stupid as your name.

We have now in the United States a political party that would rather destroy this country than see success for the democrats. Because they, and YOU, know that if the democratic agenda moves forward, republicans will be out of power... almost permanently.

The GOP is actively trying to undermine every single policy initiative this administration is trying to achieve. Never before has such polarity been evident between two political parties, except maybe for the period before the civil war.

And you have the audacity to compare the political spectrum as it is today to 35 years ago. I would love to personally beat some common sense into your pathetically stupid ass.

It's incredible how Fred demonstrates his own role in creating the paralysis he so laments. Decrying "the advent of the 60 vote rule in the Senate" without noting that said advent is the product of unprecedented obstructionism by the Republican Party enables the GOP to continue their obstructionism by euphemizing it as something other than it is -- a nihilistic willingness to run the country into the ground for sake of partisan gain. If Fred had a shred of care for the direction of this country, he'd sack up and call a spade a spade.

I am nothing more that a used piece of Repiglican Shit Paper. I love my job, i really love being used to wipe the assholes of my Repiglican Soul Mates. Anything that comes out of my mouth, err asshole, should be treated for what it is: SHIT

citizen_pain you might as well spend your time trying to get chicounsel to believe the world is round. I'm certain you'll have just as much luck trying to get a man with a 14th century mind to understand concepts of the 21st century.

If the Supreme Court rules as threatened in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that restrictions against business corporations making independent expenditures in federal election campaigns are unconstitutional, you will miss paralysis.

I don't see any way around blaming the Dems here for sheer failure to organize and coordinate their efforts. We have a bunch of Mr. Nice Guys up there yammering away to their ego's content. What we should have - a Joe Lieberman who was stripped of his committee chairmanship immediately at the beginning of this legislative session, and a number of would-be 'centrist' Dems who, instead of feeling empowered to directly contradict and take down the President's agenda, would be meekly following orders, scared to death to parrot the nutty GOP talking points for fear of losing influence and, of course, money.

We don't have a "system" that is failing us - the system can be changed. Senate rules can be changed by a simple majority vote. We have terrible politicians who do not seem to care about the outcome of their collective behavior. We have wussy wanna-be do-gooders without the political will to do what needs to be done to do the good they want to do. We elected a new president with a mandate to reform government, but instead of choosing fresh new blood and ideas in the early days after his election, he started to populate his team with a tired cast of same-old same-olds. And they are giving him their predictably bad advice. And where does that leave us? With a president who seems more worried about short-term deficits (which are almost always necessary during recessions) than about 10%+ unemployment - which WILL destroy his presidency if it keeps up for very long.

Unfortunately, we seem to have elected a very nice guy who is highly intelligent and full of good ideas and intentions, but who either doesn't want to or doesn't know how to fight against his political rivals. Just please everyone as much as you can and hope it works out OK seems to be the governing philosophy here. And it's simply baffling, given how non-serious the Republicans have been. There is no reason to have given them and the ConservaDems the level of power they've been given. And yes, they were given it, they could have been rendered quite powerless, had the impulse been to do so, rather than to extend a much undeserved hand out to them in pursuit of some vaguely Christian need to forgive & forget.

Nuke the senate, one day at a time.

Pull the nuclear trigger, and abolish the filibuster. For one day. Get everyone in the chamber, barricade the doors, and drop the bomb.

Pass a bunch of stuff, and restore the rule at the end of the day, with a stipulation: The bomb will be dropped for 2 days on the next abuse of the 60 vote, abuse to be defined by "whatever Bernie Sanders or Russ Feingold consider an abuse."

Drop it next for 2 days. Than 4, than 8. That should rein in the as.sholes.

The advent of the 60-vote rule in the Senate.....

I keep asking over and over and nobody has a good answer:

How did the Senate allow itself to get into this mode? There isn't a single significant issue, and even a bunch of insignificant issue today which isn't being subjected to this arbitrary decision to eliminate the simple majority in favor of a super majority mandate which effectively blocks the will of the electorate, by allowing a minority to routinely block legislation.

The same thing has happened here in California with a two-thirds vote needed to pass budgets and you can see how well that is working. The voters didn't ask for 60 votes....what happened to the simple majority?

Hiatt, Benen and Jeffrey Sachs (writing elsewhere) all correctly see that there is paralysis, but then say that the paralysis is caused, by conservatives resisting the liberal program, as if they have no right to do so, as if they are wrong for not simply accepting the Left's diagnosis of the country's problems and rolling over for the administration and its solutions. They all suggest, to one degree or another that the "problem" of paralysis be solved by the conservatives simply surrendering, and getting out of the way of the liberal "reform" agenda.

The commenters (and Messrs Hiatt, Benen, Sachs and others) may not like it that the Right exists, that rural states are blocking the urban states priorities, or that approximately half the population don't really trust the Federal Government (least of all this administration) with more money or power -- but the point of view exists, and has votes. The Right is not going away because the Left won the last election.

The Left has the votes and the power. . .Sure, it can take away the filibuster, probably ram through "reform" of health care, global warming, and anything else it wants. But y'll on the Left will do it alone, and will own all of the political and economic consequences. Meanwhile, don't expect the rest of us to like the program, lie down for it or help enact it, or not resist the agenda with all the means permitted by law.

Meanwhile, thank God for paralysis.

Ammend the constitution.
Save America.

It would be easier to agree with Fred Hiatt if he wasn't such an active participant in misleading his readers about the situation.

He emphasizes the "growing deficit" when the immediate problem is the economy, trashed under Bush and saved from absolute collapse by the 'stimulus' that the GOP gave two votes to.

"Underlying all is the nation's growing debt -- to other countries and to future generations. The retirement system (Social Security) and health insurance for the elderly (Medicare) are headed for bankruptcy,..."

Hiatt echoes the canard that Social Security is going bankrupt. Not true since it is pay-as-you-go.

"Pretty much everyone understands that the government must spend less and tax more, but the system seems incapable of taking a first step in either direction."

Pretty much everyone agrees that the government must spend more -- the problem is that the GOP thinks it should not tax more and disagrees with the Democrats spending priorities. Republicans SAY we should spend less, but use magical thinking to avoid cutting any popular programs and actually spending less.

"Many people indeed blame Obama ...for all these other problems as well. Some say he went for too much, too fast, over-interpreting both his electoral mandate and the opportunity presented by the economic crisis."

Those "Many people" would include all Republicans, the Villagers, Post Editorial page writers while the "Some" people include the Villagers denigrating any "mandate" and concentrating on "the deficit" rather than "jobs" and "fixing the economy".

"Obama, after all, was backed by only 53 percent of those who voted, who in turn represented only 64 percent of adults eligible to vote. "

Reagan got lower popular vote percentage (50.7 pct) among lower turnout of vote eligible (54) population. Yet the Washington Post gave him huge mandate. George W. Bush lost popular vote with same turnout as Reagan -- but got his mandate to govern. Obama gets higher popluar vote portion in a higher turnout and the Post finds 'overreach' and 'no mandate'. The real problem is IIOKIYAAR for Fred Hiatt and the Villagers.

Lying liars and the media who validate them.

pretty ironic these words coming from fred hyiatt who is part of the nexus of the problem: a dishonest media; one that has devolved into providing infotainment as the greatest return on investors passing fancy, instead of performing the irreplaceable role of truth seeker, fact checker, and muckraker. Gone in fred hyiatt's world is any semblance of responsible journalist, instead replaced by liars, scoundrels, manipulators, snake oil salesman, violence and fear mongers, and ridiculous, immature entertainers.