When this Retired Guy was a bit younger, politics used to work. It wasn’t that long ago. Politicians knew how to compromise and seemed to talk to each other rather than just at each other. They could disagree, yet still respect the other side.
There is a new book out which discusses those days. The book is called “Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked” and it is by Chris Matthews. I first became acquainted with this book via a column by Michael Smerconish in our Sunday newspaper.
For those too young to remember (after all this was about 30 years back), Tip was the Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and the Gipper was President Ronald Reagan. They disagreed greatly but had great respect for each other and were friendly. Needless to say, today’s President and Speaker are not at all like that.
Tip and the Gipper seemed to work out their differences, were able to compromise, solved some pretty big problems, and did a good job runing the country. The current batch of politicians seem to have trouble doing that.
I haven’t read the book yet but plan to so this isn’t a review. Just commenting on how politics has changed in my lifetime
Jack…good point…and even after Reagan, Clinton, especially in his second term had a decent, respectful working relationship with Newt Gingrich and the Republican congress at the time.
I believe we have too many grandstanders and too many immature sound bite artists. Not enough people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and dig into the issues of the day. Far more interested in lambasting or roasting the other party for the slightest reason – real or imagined. Maybe the 24×7 news cycle has something to with it. It seems the ‘fourth estate” flames issues (or makes them up) simply to have “news”.
Our gridlock today is relatively “small” issues…who is going to tackle: the debt crisis, social security, medicare, etc. etc. It will take real statesmanship and compromise on all sides to even begin these discussions.
Does statesmanship and compromise even exist any more? And the country continues to meander.
Hi Bill,
Well put. If you want to read or hear more about this, Chris Matthews has a 1 pager in the Oct 7 Time and Terry Gross has an interview with him on NPR (I listened to a podcast yesterday).
Jack