'Supercommittee'? Superbad

The Nov. 21 demise of the congressional “supercommittee” on debt reduction provided analysts, legislators, talking heads, occupiers, anti-occupiers, and even the silent reasonable majority with another opportunity to decry the scourge of American politics: gridlock. “Washington is broken,” announced Representative Tim Walz (D-Minn.) in a written statement. “Americans are understandably frustrated with the bickering and gridlock that has become a staple of the way Washington operates.” Said Representative Dan Lungren (R-Calif.): “With the failure of the supercommittee, Congress once again has neglected to face head-on a long-foreseen and fast-approaching crisis.” Goldman Sachs equity analyst David J. Kostin predicted in a report that “the inability of elected officials to act in the long-term best interests of all Americans” could send the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index down 9.5 percent, to 1,100. Sure enough, in the hours before the co-chairs of the supercommittee effectively closed up shop through e-mailed statements released to the press, the stock market plummeted.

On cue, Republicans and Democrats sought to blame each other. “The supercommittee’s failure is a direct result of President Obama’s negligence and Democrats’ intransigence,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. Obama countered that Republican lawmakers “refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise.” And so on.