Putting the country first

[BridgeTheGap]

WASHINGTON — Lee Hamilton remembers that when he came to Washington 45 years ago as a freshman Democrat from Indiana, he made a dumb parliamentary error that would have scuttled the bill he was advocating. The House Republican leader at the time, Gerald Ford, sent over one of his colleagues to help Hamilton fix the mistake.

The story sounds almost unbelievable in today's bitterly partisan climate, and Hamilton smiles and shakes his head as he tells it. Was there really a time like that, when party interests were subordinate to making the country work? And how could the America of 2010, a nation with an increasingly dysfunctional political system, ever get back to that Arcadia?

I asked Hamilton to ruminate about these questions recently, for two reasons: First, because at 79, he's one of the wisest and most experienced people in Washington, and second, because he will be packing his bags in November and returning home to run an institute at Indiana University. People like him, who know what it was like for government to operate effectively, are a dwindling resource in the capital.

“The big question in politics today is, what happened to the center?” he says. That erosion was evident in Tuesday's primary elections, in which dissident Republicans backed by the tea party movement toppled establishment Republicans in Delaware and New York. It was another sign that, as Hamilton says, “The centrifugal forces have become dominant.”

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100916/OPINION04/309160010/1054/OPINION/David+Ignatius+|+Putting+the+country+first

[tk2kewl]

1. Blaming partisan politics puts half of the blame on democrats

I think that is a mistake. The repugs have been saying government cannot accomplish anything useful for 30 years now and they have used politics to make that a reality in many cases. I think most democrats still feel that government can and should facility solutions to our problems.

[SusanaMontana41]

2. His equivocating is maddening

but he's following the leader.