"The System"

Is it even worth recommending E.J. Dionne columns? People should be reading him anyway. But if you're not already a regular follower, read this one on "political hypochondriacs" who like to blame "the system" when legislation they want doesn't pass:

It's all nonsense, but it is not harmless nonsense. The tendency to blame the system is a convenient way of leaving no one accountable. Those who offer this argument can sound sage without having to grapple with the specifics of any piece of legislation. There is the unspoken assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed centrists might be.

Indeed. It's just too bad that convention prevents Dionne from specifically calling out his colleague Dan Balz, whose commentary on the immigration is the perfect illustration of the dynamic he's complaining about.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/06/-the-system/42659/