Posted on 11/10/2006 3:21:46 AM PST by qlangley
It seems to have been accepted without challenge that the President is now a lame duck because his party no longer controls Congress. In reality, of course, this merely restores post-war normality to Washington.
If Presidents who do not control Congress are lame ducks, then Truman, Eisenhower and Clinton were reduced to that status only two years in to their presidencies, and yet managed to achieve re-election nonetheless. Poor Presidents Nixon and Reagan were never able to get their presidencies off the ground, and began as lame ducks from day one.
Perhaps this is why those presidents are universally regarded as being without consequence, especially when compared with the genius of Jimmy Carter, the only President in the past 30 years whose party controlled Congress thoughout his term of office.
Quentin Langley is editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net an academic at the University of Cardiff and is a columnist with Campaigns & Elections.
Go back to your swamp, Quentin ...
The days of a Mendel Rivers in the Democratic party are long gone.
Not sure what it is to which you you are referring. I don't actually own a swamp. My post mentions, ducks, I suppose, which are waterfowl . . .
>>The days of a Mendel Rivers in the Democratic party are long gone.
That would seem to be true. Are you posting this at random around FR, or did you mean it to have relevance to my post?
My apologies, evidently my remark was too cryptic.
Mendel Rivers was a deeply patriotic Democrat who chaired the House Armed Services Committee.
My point was that there are no Democrats of this stripe in positions of power in the incoming Congress. Instead, their new leadership is well-supplied from the ranks of the Progressive Caucus, the most leftwing portion of the party. Pelosi, Conyers, and Rangel are all members. McKinney and Abercrombie are members who serve on the Armed Services Committee. If Ike Skelton is given this chairmanship, he won't be as bad as having Abercrombie or McKinney, but I don't think we will like what he does do.
>>Mendel Rivers was a deeply patriotic Democrat who chaired the House Armed Services Committee.
Sure. I found that on Google pretty easily. And I agree. Those days are over.
My post was about the President and about divided government, not about the leftward drift of the Democrats.
Are you suggesting that because the Democrats are now further to the left it is harder to cope with divided government? There may be something in that. But it seems a bit early to jump to such conclusions.
quack quack
But is that quack, limp, quack?
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