Monday, October 23, 2006

Carnival of Divided Government - Quartus

Welcome to the fourth edition of the Carnival of Divided Government. As explained in Carnival of Divided Government Secondus, we have adopted Latin ordinal numeration, in order to impart the gravitas reflecting the monumental importance of the series. And as explained in CODG Tertius, we are on an accelerated weekly publication schedule to accommodate the growing momentum of the divided government meme between now and the election. The selected Carnival of Divided Government links include volunteers and draftees from both the blogosphere and main stream media.
The topic is government divided between the major parties. This week's selections:

Multi-Media

I just learned that two favorites of this blog were on The Al Franken Show. Missed it. This entry is a placeholder, and will be updated with relevant audio links or transcripts when I find them.
(1:30) William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute and a former member and acting chairman of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers. He wrote a recent article in the Washington Monthly entitled “Give Divided Government A Chance."

On Friday, Larry Kudlow's head exploded when he tried to reconcile his role as CNBC Republican Cheerleader in Chief, while analyzing a surging stock market fueled by collapsing Republican polls and the prospect of divided government - Investors Love Divided Government:



Mainstream Media

Robert Caldwell whines about the prospect of "A Democratic Sweep - And Then What?" at Human Events:
"If they win Nov. 7, we'll have divided government and potential gridlock. Bush will discover his veto power and Democrats will revel in the unaccustomed luxury of opposition "oversight" and investigations. Odds are, overwhelmingly, that nothing much will get done."
He says that like it is a bad thing.

Rich Miller finds that "Gridlocked-Government Prospect Rekindles Bull Market Memories"at Bloomberg:
"Vice President Dick Cheney says a Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 congressional elections will sabotage the economy by ushering in a new era of higher taxes and more regulation. Stock-market investors aren't buying it. The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a record last week even as polls showed that Democrats are increasingly likely to take over at least one house of Congress. Investors are banking that a Democratic victory will mean political stalemate with President George W. Bush rather than passage of an anti-business agenda."
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum teaches us a "Taxing lessons, 20 years in the making" from the Salem Statesman Journal:
"...Divide and conquer. Divided government is a boon to reform, not an obstacle. In 1986, Republicans controlled the White House and the Senate while Democrats held the House. Neither party wanted the blame for killing a bill that the public favored, so the measure kept moving forward. If the Democrats take back the House, Senate or both in next month’s elections, that could be good news for advocates of Tax Reform II."

Blogospherical Media

Joe Gandelman observes "Bush Losing Independent Voters" at The Moderate Voice:
"One reason: many independent voters are concluding that divided government is more effective and more in keeping with check-and-balances democracy as established by our founding fathers."
CTblogger pats the Hartford Courant on the back and quotes liberally from their editorial endorsements in "The Hart Courant goes all blue" at the Conecticut Blog:
Nice move from the Courant. I'll be interested to see if their feelings extends to the senate race...
"It's time for a change to Democratic control to see if they can do any better. Divided government has worked well in the past. Three Republican-held seats in Connecticut are key to whether there will be change or more of the same. Voters must ask themselves if these GOP incumbents can be part of the solution or are part of the problem."
Joe warns "don't believe the hype: dems still suck" at the oral minority, but will still vote divided:
"The thing is, voting this year is a not a tough call. There is a cancer growing, and ANY kind of division of power in Washington right now would be a good thing. Anyone who cares about our country (as opposed to the fortunes of their own political party) has no choice but to vote for divided government, in my view. I think a lot of people get that."
Yup. A lot of us get it, Joe. You nailed it with that sentence. No Choice.

Boringmadedull at The Boring Made Dull, does not get it. Perhaps I am being a bit of an ingrate here, as he includes the DWSUWF post "Disunity '06" in The Carnival of Economics and Social Policy XVIII. But he takes issue with the divided government conclusion stating:
"I would be tempted to agree that divided government is a good thing. If a) we were not in the middle of a war; and b) the Democrats were run by adults, that is, actually had a national security policy that didn’t amount to hiding under a blanket and hoping that the ‘bad guys’ go away."
Sigh. This, of course, is not a logical argument, and is not remotely similar to any position that has ever been stated by any Democrat in federal office. It is simply a statement of belief in the rhetoric of the Republican Party. I guess you really can fool some of the people all of the time.

Off Topic Media

Finally, we received a variety of completely Off Topic submissions for the Carnival this week. As is our tradition, we select one for inclusion in the Carnival. This weeks winner:

John presents Sunnis Establish an Islamic Republic Inside Iraq posted at The Largest Minority

That concludes this edition. Thanks for stopping by, and thanks to all for the submissions. The next edition of the Carnival of Divided Government will be posted one week from today, at 11:59 PM PST Monday October 30. Submit your blog article at carnival of divided government using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Addendum
Ken Goldstein has posted the 11th edition of the Carnival of the Decline of Democracy at Random Thoughts, and included our post "Third in Line" among his selections.

One of the pleasure of participating in carnivals, is finding a great blog that you might have otherwise missed. Ken found one for me when he linked to Hell's Handmaiden, who is "surfing the sea of chaos" with a fine selection of thoughtful posts. Check out the maiden, and don't forget on November 7th to Catch the wave.

Divided and Balanced.™ Now that is fair.

Just Vote Divided.



1 comment:

Ricketson said...

For the sake of divided government, I'm participating in Chris Bowers' "Election Googlebomb". I have a short post up at my blog, and here's Bowers' final announcement at DKos.