Democratic leadership is looking for a way to narrow the range of possible common denominators, a difficult task, though the leadership and vision in the Democratic party seems to be morphing to a new paradigm, given clearly business as Republican usual would lead to more embroglios of the sort the exiting folks will be enjoying over chuckles as they count their personal savings and arduously won tax shelters.

Reforming “business as usual” in an institution such as Congress is no trivial task. A few months back I read Naked Emperors: The Failure of the Republican Revolution, by Scott Faulkner, which described how the GOP’s allegedly good intentions fell apart upon gaining control of the House for the first time in 40 years in 1994. Gingrich and a handful of other Republican Reps who’d been in the House for a while had set in motion plans to make some changes that would have genuinely been positive. Theretofore the day-to-day, routine management of such activities such as printing, assigning and decorating office space, moving furniture, operating the phone system, postal operations, etc., had been handled by the House Administration Committee. According to the author (about whom I’ll say more shortly), as long as anyone could remember the handling of these tasks had not only been inefficient but also infused with partisan bias. The majority members got much better service than the minority, although the committee chair didn’t hesitate use his control over the staff to reward or punish members of either party depending on how they voted on legislation of interest to him. Gingrich (to his credit if the author’s assertions are accurate) wanted to start running these logistical activities on a professional, businesslike, and non-partisan basis, and the incoming Speaker also pushed through the change of the committee’s name and charter to “Oversight” instead of “Administration.” Scott Faulkner was a former Republican House staffer who subsequently had built a consulting reputation in “Change Managememt”, and in view of the fact that he continued to have strong ties to the Party he was hired as the first Manager of House Administration.

Faulkner’s book traces the trajectory from initial optimism to dashed hopes. In short two things did in the project. First, the incoming GOP chair of the Administration/Oversight committee, who had spent years waiting for his chance as the ranking minority member, wasn’t about to let his power be kicked to the curb now that he was finally committee chair. And secondly, Gingrich didn’t support Faulkner at critical showdowns with the chairman. (Sorry, I don’t remember his name.) Part of the reason for this was that he needed to conserve his ammunition for what he regarded as more important fights. At the same time, however, the Speaker had a zipper problem that the committee chairman learned about, and he essentially blackmailed him.

That, at least, is the gist of the story as told by Faulkner. However, the author comes across in the book as a person of overweening self-confidence, and as one who very likely is viewing the events through a lens with a formidable coefficient of refraction. I hope someday to learn more about these events from another perspective.

I’d no clue about Davis’s background, nor do I generally care.
Exposing my own ignorance (and not for the first time!) I recall an amiable, pleasant man of goodwill from some Fairfax, VA Econ Development outfit (or maybe Chamber of Commerce…) talking some years back about how when the economy went stale in the late 1970s, and Carter offered early retirement to civil servants, many with ‘tech skills’ were already in the region, hence a ‘built in high tech workforce’.

He was almost busting his buttons with pride about the magnificent economy back in Fairfax, VA; and several homebuilders were almost embarrassing themselves with their drooling over how they could get into that market.

It never occurred to me that Davis had any sort of tech background, but your point certainly underscores part of why JohnJ @32 proposes such a good idea.

FWIW, whether more transparency is to ‘out’ the Rovian plants, or simply make people a bit more accountable is all a good argument. I wonder whether we aren’t entering an era where government as we’ve known it simply isn’t going to cut it — electeds will have too much pressure from citizens to make sure there are better ‘feedback loops’. JohnJ’s suggestion naturally falls under that umbrella, or so it seems to me.

JohnLopresti… my good heavens.
What insights… my, oh my.
My head will be exploding for at least another 30 minutes from this little item.

I wouldn’t be even slightly surprised to see them shut down virtually all of the government agencies in order to “prove” the incompetence of the Dem admin. They need to be uncovered and publicly exposed so that we can show their actions BEFORE they can be activated, mooting their actions, as our Civil Service System will protect them from preemptive removal. My idea is a continually updated public progress report on each so we can show when they obstruct and that they were hired by Monica G et el.

Wouldn’t it be great to use the Political appointee positions created by Rove to nullify their obstruction before we eliminate those positions?

Given, I’m talking smallish potatoes on a smaller scale; not talking federal regs, etc.
But boy, I have seen this phenomenon one too many times, and at this point I think the old ‘noblesse oblige’ is a formula for disaster.

I’d been using the wrong metaphor.
I’d thought that, like children and teens, they’d ‘grow out of it’.
Maybe some do, but not enough of them.

Infection really is a more apt, more useful analogy.
Dive down and get every single bit of it. Then treat it very carefully for an extended period.
Then keep checking to make sure it has not returned.

None of what we’ve seen in BushCheney could have occurred without Iran-Contra, and if the Beltway Dems are too compromised to act on problems in which they were complicit, then there’s an urgent need for More Better Dem/Progressives.

We’ve made the mistake of letting people go about their business (’as usual’) one too many times.

I rather suspect, however, that one huge factor driving the McSame meltdown is the terror and fear of people who’ve committed crimes that they’ll be investigated and brought to justice. Hence, the intense over-reaction and panic on their part.