no pundit intended scot, but thanks for setting silly ol me straight on where the REAL problems lie in our political system. i mean right smack dab here in the middle of good ONE PARTY good ol suffolk county ma. US of A ,i, for whatever reason thought that all the things that bleeped me off politically were the voters quaint little habit of electing and reelecting democrats with NO KNOWN LIFE SKILLS other than as political electoids or their appointees with a very strong penchant for bribery, extortion and oh ya silence. and those scribe, are their good points. now i can go off to work hawking my beloved papers knowing that all along the real problem was with the republican party. thanks again scot for helping to set me straight and btw, once again, when do you think will be the next time you and some of your colleagues might wanna ask the powers that be in this city and state some leading questions that deserve and demand answers? or the 1st time. your good friend through thick and thin. ma

Let's stick to Webster's Dictionary for definitions. You are a bit off. Fair minded does not mean conservative or even liberal for that matter. Each morning you show up stuck in backward rut. If you have any clear evidence to support what you say, let's hear it. Otherwise you are just whistling Dixie.

Mr. Lehigh stated clearly that this book demonstrates both Parties have blame but the extreme obstructionist measures by the Republicans has had more impact and kept the status quo. Now if you are a Republican this should be cause to rejoice. Maybe, just maybe you guys are not as sure of yourselves that this is what you want.

The Right counts on a short attention span and subtle forms of racism and classism. Nixon's southern strategy and Newt's list of words to use against Democrats remain big parts of the playbook. "Hey, the Dems are letting gays marry, they let blacks and women run their party, and they support those unions that destroy jobs." They never really had to take full responsibility for W and his policies because they could dump it all on Obama from Day 1. They hate their country more than any of the opponents they say hate their country!

As you can see, System is one of those conservatives who hates his country more than any of the people he says he hates! Hates any facts that don't support his position and uses personal attacks when anyone goes against his views. And no, I cannot explain why people like him hate their country so much.

Even keeled and non-polemical? I sure wouldn't want them on my jury as defendant on trial. If their conclusions are accurately reported here, the see-saw has lodged in the ground. What balance are you talking about, Scott. It is no wonder that we simple minded "folks" believe everything we read from academia and then vote the liberal pursuasion. I try to be a serious person and, after watching Congress pass Obama's health care into law -all billion unread pages- with no attempt at any compromise and against the majority of Americans wishes with zero Republican votes I whistle at the words in your column today. I dream of the days when Reagan and Tip O'Neil actually talked to each other. The last time Harry or Nancy had a conversation it wasn't friendly and it did not include their opposition. "A pox on both their houses"? No way, Jose'. This one is on the Democrats. Their way or the highway is the song they sing. The Republicans wanted to sit down and talk about a simple thing like a balanced budget. Have you seen any budget yet?

I suppose in a general sort of way one can blame the political parties, but I tend to blame the American public. The party's merely reflect the public in much the same way that our politicians do. There has always been a strain of know-knothing within the public. Periods of irrational religious fervor, periods of blatant nationalism and imperialism. Rather than recognize the tendency towards egocentricity by the broad swath of the American heartland we will write tomes on the failure of the political party's. This current upswell of anti-modernism, anti-immigrant, anti-women, anti-minorities is nothing new. The public becomes frightened of the modern world, frustrated by the inability of the current political process to protect them and they turn to ideologies that say we have enemies out there. One reads the nonsense of the Libertarians, the Tea Partiers and yes even some on the left and all one sees is a refusal to look at the nations problems in the eye and fix them and instead sees a group of people heck bent on the destruction of everything that frightens them. Sometimes the unchanging behavior in human beings makes me wonder if "evolution" does in fact work.

I think it is wholly predictable that Scot would give high praise to a work which concludes it is all the THEIR fault, while for effect mentioning some of the more slimy Democrat moves in recent years. Scot has a world view, and this book supports it, and makes him feel vindicated in his bias. I have not yet read the book, but I can guarantee you that if they looked at the totality of our political system, there would be as many examples on both sides of the aisle. The book's conclusion was likley pre ordained. NEW PARAGRAPH: As as an observer of politics for many years, I have never been so amazed at the current President's inability to lead, and unwillingness to court the Republicans in seeking solutions. He has been aloof, condescending, and downright rude at time in dealing with the other side. The examples are endless, but to name a few, recall his invitation Paul Ryan to a speech on the budget, in which he lambastes Mr Ryan. Or his petty cheap shot at the State of The Union address, insulting the Supreme Court Justices sitting right in front of him. These are of course, anecdotal. But there is a pattern of a president who lacks the ability to connect with all sides in seeking solutions. It is my contention that the president's childish behavior toward his opposition that is driving much of the GOP actions mentioned here. NEW PARAGRAPH: Remember Bill Clinton. He had executive experience, and knew how to work with the other side to get things done. He did not engage in the petty partisanship of Obama, and built strong, working relationships with the GOP when they controlled the congress. Same with Ronald Reagan, when the Democrats controlled congress. This is the essence of leadership, and it is a quality Barack Obama lacks. NEW PARAGRAPH: I will read the book, but I do not expect to come to the same conclusion as Scot.

Profox: You know, I hear that now and again on health care, but the simple facts of the case are these: The Democrats sent much of the first year trying to broker a compromise. Remember Max Baucus's long effort to get Charles Grassley aboard? And the way the administration and Harry Reid let him extend that effort months beyond the time he first said he'd need? It's also important to remember that the administration abandoned the idea of a public option or even co-ops because of GOP objections. And the mechanism they settled on -- individual mandate -- started as a Heritage/GOP plan back during the days of HillaryCare, one that Mitt had used in Massachusetts. Now, it's true the eventual vote was done on reconciliation, which wasn't optimal, but that's also a technique the GOP used for the Bush tax cuts, so it's hardly beyond the pale. Anyway, those are some things to consider ... Scot

Profox, did you miss the last 3+ years or something? No compromise on the ACA? Uhh, go back and see what the dems wanted to pass and see what was passed. There's a LOT of compromise in the bill to appease the repubs. Do you see a single payer system, which was the ultimate goal originally? And "my way or the highway" is a dem thing? Ever hear of Grover Norquist? He's got every repub signing his No Taxes pledge, which means they absolutely refuse any legislation that would require compromise in the form of some new taxes or even eliminating tax cuts. This mess we're in is very, very bipartisan. But I agree with the book, the extremism is coming more from the right. No one on the left appears to have gotten more left, but the right has shifted way right as of late. And they're so afraid to appear weak by compromising that they simply don't compromise. Look at the number of filibusters used in the last few years compared to any dem-controlled congress. Then get back to us.

I appreciate being alerted to a thoughtful book. And, I knew from the first phrase of this column that Scot was going to rile up the right side of the room. We seem to have no ability in public conversation these days to look at any problem without escalating to defensive "you did it too's". I take some solace from reading history and seeing that indeed, other time periods also demonstrated a serious lack of intelligent compromise between factions. At least we don't have politicians dueling to the death these days. But the human animal isn't showing a lot of ability to know how to compromise and work out mutually beneficial solutions.

Right on, Scott. This couldn't be more accurate. It is high time we speak the truth and stop trying to pretend "both parties do it." The GOP is on a mission to defeat President Obama at all costs and, trust me, we have all paid the cost for their obstructionism and extremism.

I agree that calling out one party who appears to be more egregious at this time deserves applause, however both parties have been guilty of similar actions. My hope nieve though it may be, is that by calling out the worst offenders, of this we can lower the tollerance for this.

Richmond: Good for your for resolving to read the book. One of the points the authors make is that any number of well-regarded figures from the GOP past, including the Gipper, would find it very tough sledding in today's GOP. Recall that T-Paw had to disavow anything that had looked like a tax increase during his time as governor. What would the reaction have been to Reagan's big California increase? Or his various post-1981 deficit reduction packages? And certainly the kind of Republicans who have done so well in this state -- Bill Weld, Paul Cellucci, even Mitt 2.0 -- would find it hard to find any traction at all in toay's GOP. That's why Romney has had to do a 180 on health care, his signal achievement here, and something he once seemed to hope could be a national model.

Another interpretation of recent events is that, for the first time since the New Deal, we are having a fundamental debate about the proper balance between federal and state government powers and between public and private allocation of resources. For decades, the liberal media (NY Times, CBS News, etc.) refused to admit that there are serious conservative arguments on these questions. The Internet and News Corp. have broken that liberal media cartel. Because the citizenry is divided on these issues, it is entirely understandable that there is political "gridlock" in Washington. Look for the liberal political elite to try to silence News Corp. and to regulate the Internet so that we can return to the "good old days" of Walter Cronkite telling us what to think.

While essentially correct, Scot's a little late to the party. If anyone is interested, this story broke at the beginning of the month, and left-wing internet media has already noted the failure of national "liberal news sources" to cover it. Here's a link for that: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/21/11792634-if-a-provocative-thesis-falls-in-a-forest?lite In reading through the comments section of this thread, one thing is incredibly obvious. The right has had ample time to prepare it's smears against the authors, just as it smears anyone else who dares question that the modern conservative party emperor indeed has no clothes.

Boo-hoo. The NY Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, ABC, NBC, and others, including Mann and Ornbstein, are all liberal liars. Maybe there's denial afoot here. Richmond says Obama is an arrogant dictator with no collaboration ability, but I remember differently. Early in his administration, I saw Obama appear at a gathering of the GOP legislators, asking for consensus and taking questions. Questions were asked and answered. Try as they might, no one in the room managed to skewer or confound the president. I have never seen another president dare to do this. What did he get back? False insults. He wasan't a citizen, he was a muslim, he was called a liar in public, he was informed the salient priority and first thing on the agenda was removing him from office. Not many presidents have been subjected to this sort of thing. Lincoln and Roosevelt come to mind. We'll see (or others will) how history treats the likes of Nixon, Reagan, Bush.

Ozark: Hmmm. Here, in my mind, is the problem with that. Even if you grant that premise, the way to pursue that debate is to have the debate, not to threaten to filibuster almost everything the Senate does, thereby requiring 60 votes on everything, including procedural actions. The right course is to fight to repeal legislation you disagree with rather than keeping the administration from appointing eminently qualified people -- Berwick, Cordray, Peter Diamond in a different sense -- from taking jobs. Look at GOP's economy-damaging brinksmanship over things like the debt-ceiling vote; that vote is made necessary by budgetary policies Congress has already acceded to. If you haven't prevailed in the spending debate, it's simply not responsible to hold the country hostage later on. Nor is it remotely realistic or responsible to rule out any new revenue increases to solve a serious fiscal problem created in no small part by tax cuts. But recall that all the GOP presidential candidates said they wouldn't take accept $1 in new revenues for each $10 in spending cuts. And Ryan's template actually rules out any net new revenues. I'm a big watcher of Fox News, and while they have some good journalists -- Shep and Bret come to mind -- a lot of their presentation is just laughable. Watching the morning shows, one would never know that, say, the tax cuts or interest costs associated with them had anything to do with the long-term budget deficit. Or that the recessionary economy, and the depressed revenues related to it, have been a big factor. Instead, a viewer comes away with the idea that it's all Obama administration spending, when that's just silly. Or that there are many scientists who feel that global warming is real (Fox never mentions it as even a POSSIBLE contributor to the strange weather events). Nor, with the exception of Juan Williams, will you ever find anyone who might mention that one part of the solution to our deficits woes might be higher top rates -- or that the economy has performed far better with higher top rates in the past. In other words, conservatives have flocked ot a network whose presentation is far more one-sided than the mainstream outlets they object to. It's the closing of the conservative mind, which I find it hard to applaud. Scot

First, if Ornstein was actually a liberal hatchetman, he wouldn't be employed at the American Enterprise Institute, which is a decades old bastion of conservatism that counts Lynne Cheney and Newt Gringrigh among its current or former scholars. Second, Democrats may have complained a lot during the Bush administration, but aside from evanutally winning elections, they rarely did anything to oppose Republican policies. The number of filibusters and blocked nominees during Bush's presidency has been dwarfed by the same figures from the first thirty nine months of Obama's presidency.

Well worth bringing to everyone's attention. Thanks for doing this.

Decent article and some very good comments (although a little too long in most cases). I'm a person who doesn't fit into either party but I'm not quite bold enough to take a full "Libertarian" or "independent" label. It's articles and comments like this which give me affirmation that the system, while screwed up, works because in some odd way, there's some form of equilibrium. Accountability & justice is what each party seems to lack. Bring those two attributes into the mix and you'd see a political system begin to right itself which would likely serve each of us in some positive way.