The razor-thin margin of passage for the Senate Democratic budget highlights the challenge Majority Leader Harry Reid will have in steering President Obama’s legislative agenda through the Senate.
I remain puzzled by journalistic or civic worry over the Senate's dysfunction. Yes, systemically it's troublesome, but as a practical matter, for at least the next two years, it's utterly inconsequential. Remember the House? This House? The GOP House?--that dyspeptic daycare in which responsible, adult legislation takes a holiday?
To be sure, Speaker Boehner could do the mature and democratic thing by allowing a Republican-minority/Democratic-majority coalition to seize the day. But Speaker Boehner would then soon become Member Boehner, and the speaker has demonstrated of late a decided unwillingness to rejoin the lower ranks of the chickenshit coop.
So hell, in the upper chamber let defecting Democrats defect and filibustering Republicans filibuster. The Senate's dysfunction is no worse than superfluous at this point.