The Problem With Politics, Ctd.

by Peter Suderman

Even if you can stand the chaos, the fact remains, disappointment remains nearly inevitable, even if your political allies are in an extremely favorable position. That's just the nature of politics. Here's Kevin Drum on why "Washington DC is a tough place to get anything done" -- no matter what party you're in:

[During George Bush's presidency, conservatives] wanted a revolution, but instead they got NCLB. And a wimpy stem cell compromise. And Sarbanes-Oxley. And McCain-Feingold. And a huge Medicare expansion. And complete gridlock on Social Security.

Not exactly what they signed up for.

The tax cuts were great, of course, but what about abortion and gay marriage and entitlement reform and slashing the size of government and ANWR and the Endangered Species Act and everything else on the conservative wish list? They got most of what they wanted on the national security front (missile defense, big Pentagon budget increases, a couple of nice wars), but on the domestic front most of them felt like Bush ended up delivering almost nothing.

It wasn't quite that bad, of course. They did get the tax cuts, after all. And they got a new bankruptcy law and a bunch of right-wing judges. But for the most part, their domestic agenda crashed on the shoals of the status quo too.