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Dems Put Pragmatism Before Policy

Desperate to pass bills, Congress quick to forgo ideals: Brooks

By Matt Cantor, Newser Staff

Posted Jun 30, 2009 8:56 AM CDT

(Newser) – The Democrats learned lasting lessons from the Clinton health care battle: Let Congress, not the White House, write the bills; don’t try to fight the corporations; and avoid failure at all costs. As a consequence, writes David Brooks in the New York Times. the party has taken a “Vince Lombardi attitude” to policy, willing to tweak a bill to oblivion in a desperate effort “to cobble together a majority.”

“When the executive branch is dominant you often get coherent proposals that may not pass. When Congress is dominant, as now, you get politically viable mishmashes that don’t necessarily make sense,” Brooks writes. Take the cap-and-trade bill: leaders took a “relatively clean though politically difficult” concept and “transformed it into a morass of corporate giveaways that make the stimulus bill look parsimonious.” Sure, it passed—but “it’s impossible to know” whether it will reduce emissions.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., speaks with reporters during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Congressional Dems are taking a "Vince Lombardi" approach to policy, Brooks writes. (Shutterstock)

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Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing.
- Attributed to football coach Vince Lombardi, who insisted he was misquoted and had actually said "Winning isn't everything. The will to win is the only thing."

A few years ago the European Union passed a cap-and-trade system, but because it was so shot through with special interest caveats, emissions actually rose. - David Brooks

The great paradox of the age is that Barack Obama, the most riveting of recent presidents, is leading us into an era of Congressional dominance. - David Brooks

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Dems Put Pragmatism Before Policy