It’s not easy for an elected body to manage its reputation.
The actions of a few can reflect badly on the whole. Keeping members on the same page and moving in the same direction takes smart leadership. Ideological and personality schisms have to be respected and bridged. There are very few decisions that vast majorities agree with, so making a decision makes enemies.
Even with those excuses in mind, the current Congress has set new standards for failed reputation management. The most recent New York Times/CBS News poll gave Congress single digit favorability – a historic low. A Washington Post chart shows that impressions of our legislative branch have sunk well below those of lawyers, banks, President Nixon during Watergate, and even Communism.
A horrifying column in today’s New York Times demonstrates exactly why.
Former star political reporter Thomas D. Edsall, now a journalism professor at Columbia University, explains that the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka the “Super Committee”) is failing to reach an agreement not because it can’t, but because failure would produce a more desirable political outcome.
