Leaving this all behind

Leaving this all behind

by digby

… for a few hours.

I’m heading out for the evening. If they announce a deal, I’m sure I’ll hear the collective “huzzah” from all of you.(I suppose it might be a raspberry … or a groan.)

In any case, if it happens, consider that it could have been worse.

And that in the next round it almost assuredly will be.

Meanwhile, you might enjoy reading this interesting piece in the NYRB:

Walter Bagehot in The English Constitution divided government into two components, the dignified part and the efficient part. The dignified part is concerned with matters of ceremony, the arrangement and conduct of state occasions for celebration or mourning, the issuance of joint communiqués with foreign leaders and commands delivered from a majestic height. The efficient part is the part of government that governs—by making laws above all, but also by striking bargains between factions, and filling the positions of upper, middle, and lower functionaries, and threshing out party platforms on the way to becoming laws.

Barack Obama from the start of his presidency has exhibited an almost exclusive taste for the dignified part of government.

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