Absolute Power Has Become Absolute Failure

Michael Barone wonders how Obama and the Democrats could have gone from such highs in 2008 to such lows today:

How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.

The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.

The 2008 campaign was an impressive achievement. So, in a negative way, is the 2009 legislative program that has left the Democrats in such woeful shape in 2010.
Some in Washington say that the problem is that Barack Obama has chosen to rely on his campaign staff rather than the wise old heads in Washington. But Obama and his team have had the benefit of advice from those wise old heads and from the smartest political strategist the Democratic party has produced in the past half-century, Bill Clinton.

A truly wise Washington analyst, National Journal's Jonathan Rauch, says the problem is one-party government. Presidents lead better, he argues, when they are constrained by the need to get bipartisan support.

The Democrats launched 2009 with significant majorities in both Houses and essentially shut Republicans out of the process of crafting legislation because they no longer needed their support. That's how we ended up with such bad law and bills that caused an uprising among much of the American public. Now, in desperation, Democrats claim to want bipartisanship, which is really another way of saying they want cover. They have no intention of changing their policies or plans - they just want to make it look like the GOP agrees with them.

Barone has some more information on how this has all developed. You can read it here.