Today's NY Times poll has the approval rate for Congress at 25%:
By broad margins, respondents said that members of Congress were too tied to special interests and that they did not understand the needs and problems of average Americans. Two-thirds said Congress had accomplished less than it typically did in a two-year session; most said they could not name a single major piece of legislation that cleared this Congress. Just 25 percent said they approved of the way Congress was doing its job.Dana Milbank's column in today's Washington Post documenting the shenanigans in Tex Sensenbrenner's hearing on torture helps explain why:
It was, in all, a tough day for the jowly, red-faced chairman, who had insisted that the legislation go through his committee against House leaders' wishes. Nor was it one of the finest days for House Republicans, who proved that, on the subject of torture, they could tie themselves in knots just as easily as their colleagues in the Senate, where the Bush bill is in a stalemate with one backed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and friends.The Republicans on the Hill can't govern. They can't think for themselves. It's either Bush pulling the puppet strings or one of their entrenched special interests.
Confronted with one of the weightiest issues of the times -- whether to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions' torture prohibitions -- the committee members quickly retreated to the familiar terrain of extraneous and off-point arguments.
