It's The Constitution, Stupid

A nice counterpoint to Dan Balz's weird Broderish moaning that "the political culture of Washington" didn't bring forth the immigration compromise he desired is provided by John Broder in The New York Times who points out that the institutions of American government are designed to make it hard to pass legislation on controversial topics.

All things considered, I think this is a bad thing, and think it's generally better to operate under more parliamentary methods. But like it or not, you go to war with the institutions you have, and there's no sense heaping personal scorn on individual legislators for institutional factors beyond their control.