Last week I encouraged folks to read this op-ed, “Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans are the Problem,” by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein that appeared in the Washington Post. Mann and Ornstein are both middle-of-the-road political analysts (at the Brookings Institution and American Enterprise Institute, respectively). “We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years,” they write, ”and never have we seen them this dysfunctional.” They attribute most of that dysfunction to the Republicans’ dramatic turn to the right and they criticize the media for its faux even-handedness in blaming both parties for the current condition. Their op-ed was based on their new book It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.
