In my opinion the problem is not with Congress, nor with Bush, but with our two-party system. Whoever thinks it is a good system is a Democrat or Republican. Long ago these two parties reached some sort of “critical mass” whereby they can use their entrenched positions to thwart any new party from making headway.

When we hold elections nowadays, we are really deciding which party will control each position of authority. We do not elect a person as president anymore, we elect a political party. To be sure, the personalities and opinons of the candidates come into play, but 1) our choices are limited to people who have risen through the ranks of one of the two parties, 2) behind the scenes, unelected party officials have influence on the final slate, and 3) the parties have ridiculous amounts of money to throw at any particular race.

The Congress isn’t a bunch of girly men and women, they are individuals who have succeeded in politics by flowing with the system. While some may have high ideals, none are anywhere near as powerful as the party they belong to. The parties have all the power and their main agenda is to stay in power. Ideological differences have some influence over which party a particular individual associates with – but to the parties as a whole, these differences are significant only in terms of the number of votes you might gain or lose. The trick is to know your crowd, and to tailor your statements to please them. Individuals who are uncompromising in their beliefs are not successful.

The parties have taken over all three branches of government, even the courts which should clearly be apolitical. It seems especially shameful to me that one can often predict how Supreme Court judges will vote on a particular case, based on the party of the president who installed them. The current flap about prosecutors fired for political reasons is another example of the parties’ influence on the judicial branch.

We now have a system with greatly diminished checks and balances between the three branches. It is also a system more easily corrupted, since decisions are made based on vote-getting rather than ideology or conscience.

Now to return to the original point which I was supposed to comment on…

In my opinion the invasion of Iraq under false pretexts, and the trampling of civil liberties, would have been impossible if our political scene was one of diverse opinions, with three independent branches.

Historians will some day make various judgements on why we really invaded Iraq. It seems likely it was a combination of factors, such as Bush’s personal reasons, and possibly ulterior motives of “behind-the-scenes” people. But we can be pretty sure of one thing without waiting for the history books: At some early point in the process both parties assessed how a particular position on the issue might “play out” in terms of vote-getting. The “Patriot Act” and other encroachments on civil liberties were similarly analyzed, not on whether they are right or wrong, but on how many voters would be attracted or alienated.

Both parties believed the voters wanted action to prevent terrorism. The fact that the actions taken have done no such thing, and actually have increased our risk, doesn’t even enter into the equation. The truth is not a vote-getter.