Our broken Congress

Of late, my motto has become: "Nothing gets done in Congress, because the system is broken."

So a letter to the editor in the New York Times caught my eye. It says it so well. It's from Edie Freedman of Gloucester, MA.

"How times have changed.

In the 1950s, my grandmother served in the Connecticutt Legislature.

When she in her late 90s, I brought a friend of mine to meet her. As I made the introductions, I mentioned that she had been in politics. She drew herself up straight and rather starchily said: "Government, dear. I was in government."

Well said. That's why Congress is broken: politics has replaced government. Too bad we don't have more people who know the difference.

Yes, I know. I have often defined politics positively as "the art of the possible." There is, of course, a good side of politics.

What has tainted it of late and makes this anecdote so apt, is that it seems to have shifted from: politics as the art of the possible in the service of the people, to: politics as the manipulative schemes of the powerful for personal gain -- or to destroy the opposition with utter disregard for the needs of the people.

Ralph