Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
This is one of the weirdest statements I've seen in a long time, in reaction to the passage of the health care reform bill in the Senate:
"We are now functioning under a parliamentary form of government," says Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) in a conversation with NRO. "An ideological supermajority in Congress, along with a government run by community organizers, has taken over."
What in the world does the second sentence have to do with the first? The second sentence just means "a majority of my fellow Senators are voting for things I don't like." But how on earth does that change our form of government to a parliamentary one? We still only have two parties. This is some weird form of word salad.
Politics
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When voting is decided upon for purely partisan reasons (i.e. passage of a health care bill - any health care bill that has tangible reform in one of the three critical areas of health care, not necessarily an ideal health care bill - would be good for the Democrats and bad for the Republicans) we can expect a certain amount of nonsense to be spouted. After all, he can hardly say why he's really against the bill, it wouldn't sound so flattering.
Posted by: SteveWW | December 23, 2009 9:33 AM
Community organizers?
GASP
...God help us all. And not that pansy-ass liberal God either.
Posted by: Jeff | December 23, 2009 9:39 AM
"We are now functioning under a parliamentary form of government,"
So you are saying that America have become Canada now? After all the talk in Canada about it becoming the 51st state of America? Projection much there sir?
Yeah; this is weird Ed, really weird. Time to bring out the men in the white coats and the net.
Posted by: Gregory Weagle | December 23, 2009 9:56 AM
Hmmmm, let's see, congress dominated by two parties, only two parties really have a shot at winning any major state or federal office. Only two parties are involved in making decisions. Parliamentary? Not so much.
WTF??? Your guys got to run the place for 8 years, fucked it up, got your asses handed to you in the last election. You lost, get over it. Besides, you left such a huge mess for the Democrats to try to fix, odds are good you'll get back into power and have you chance to fuck things up more within the next decade or so.
Posted by: dogmeatib | December 23, 2009 10:15 AM
Parliamentary democracy? I wish it were so...Judd Gregg would have been history long ago. But having lived under both systems, Parliamentary in India, and separated Executive here in the US, it's looking like Tweedledum and Tweedledee to me - to-mah-toh or to-may-to or as Dan Quayle might say, po-ta-to or po-ta-toe. Politicians, bureaucrats, judges - you can't get away from them. But I am thankful. The alternative is a free system like, say, Somalia!
Posted by: impal | December 23, 2009 10:23 AM
Senator Judd Gregg? - Is it just me or do others keep seeing Sly Stallone as "Judge Dredd"*?
Ultra-cheese no matter how you slices it! Get a clue Senator Gregg. - DJ
-------
* "I AM the law!
Posted by: DIngoJack | December 23, 2009 10:38 AM
mark the day in the calendar --- it may be a long time before i next wish a republican legislator were right when he, alas, is wrong.
Posted by: Nomen Nescio | December 23, 2009 10:46 AM
I'm not clear how the number of parties enters into it. I hate to resort straight to Wikipedia as a source, but still:
"A parliamentary system is a system of government where in the ministers of the executive branch are drawn from the legislature, and are accountable to that body, such that the executive and legislative branches are intertwined...
"The term parliamentary system does not mean that a country is ruled by different parties in coalition with each other."
The second sentence still doesn't follow from this, but I don't think the parliamentary analogy is quite as "dumbass" as you suggest.
Posted by: Loren | December 23, 2009 10:51 AM
In this context, "parliamentary" means "the kind of government they have in Europe, especially the Nazi-Communist parts of Europe".
So basically he's warning us that we're moving incrementally towards Universal Health Care, a popular feature of European Nazi-Communist Parliamentary regimes.
"Community organizers" in this context means "black people".
Posted by: chaos_engineer | December 23, 2009 11:27 AM
Chaos_engineer,
To rephrase Judge Dredd sorry Judd Gregg in your terms,
"We are now functioning under a Nazi-Communist-Socialist-European form of government," says Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.) in a conversation with NRO. "An ideological supermajority in Congress, along with a government run by Black People, has taken over."
Posted by: impal | December 23, 2009 11:35 AM
along with a government run by community organizers
I think that part means that people other than white people are voting.
Posted by: Tom | December 23, 2009 11:49 AM
Why that's crazy enough to have come out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth. Do you think..... Nah. It's not like Limbaugh controls the talking points of the Republic party, right?
Posted by: Gingerbaker | December 23, 2009 11:53 AM
@6 DJ
The evidence has been falsified!
Posted by: Jordan G | December 23, 2009 12:12 PM
Yeah, but it looks like our guys have fucked it up in less than a year.
Posted by: Owen | December 23, 2009 12:35 PM
If we are Canada now, do we get single payer health care?
Posted by: Holytape | December 23, 2009 12:36 PM
Yeah, but it looks like our guys have fucked it up in less than a year.
What have they fucked up? You could argue that they haven't exactly fixed much, if anything, but what have they fucked up that wasn't FUBAR to begin with?
Posted by: dogmeatib | December 23, 2009 12:41 PM
Wasn't fixin' stuff was the point of it all? Unless I misunderstood what Hope, Change and Yes we can meant.
Posted by: Owen | December 23, 2009 12:50 PM
The federal government has been acting like a parliament for a long time. Separation of powers? Where? Not even 2006-2008 was there any real checks among the "separate" powers of the government.
Posted by: Juice | December 23, 2009 1:02 PM
Let me correct myself. The Hamdan case may be a glaring exception. There may be a couple other exceptions, but they are that, simply exceptions.
Posted by: Juice | December 23, 2009 1:22 PM
Owen,
Stem Cell Research Ban - fixed
Guantanamo Bay - sort of fixing that, maybe
Climate - working on it from science rather than stupid
Health Care - working on it in spite of the party of 'No'
World Opinion - could only go up after Shrub & Darth
Iraq - we are getting out
Afghanistan - we appear to be targeting the real 9/11 asswipes but I'll withhold judgment for a bit
Economy - making progress much more quickly than expected
At least Obama isn't reading My Pet Goat while the world rocks around him. He seems engaged and coherent even if every decision isn't exactly what I'd want. Gay rights are a big disappointment. Constitutional rights still not reversed from Shrub's disasters. Not bad all in all for a year. Given 8 years he might get us back to pre-Shrub.
Posted by: MikeMa | December 23, 2009 1:27 PM
Well, to provide allowances, if one allowed for the existence of factions within each of the two major parties (e.g., "blue-dog democrats" and "tea-party republicans"), then coalition politics becomes more of a feasible explanation of what we have seen over the past year. True, the GOP voted as a single block, but you could view this as the (few) moderate republicans forming a coalition with the conservative and neocon republicans. More visibly, though, was the different cleavages that were seen among the various factions of Democrats (liberal, moderate, conservative), especially with regard to health care.
Looking at politics in this sort of manner is a way of describing Japanese politics when the LDP had majority control over the Japanese parliament: it didn't really matter what the other parties did (even if they formed a massive coalition against the LDP, it usually wouldn't have been enough to stop action if the LDP acted as a single party). Looking at factions within the LDP was the only way of seeing how parliamentary politics worked in much of Japanese post-WW2 history.
I would propose that the recent period of highly partisan US politics should also be looked at through the lens of faction politics within each party. True, it's a much less colorful type of parliamentary politics than one might see in the UK (with its three major parties) or even in Italy (with its two major coalitions), but to some level, the concept of "Party" has become a concept that is too general of a unit of measurement (especially with regard to the US Democratic Party).
To quote Will Rogers: "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
Posted by: Umlud | December 23, 2009 1:29 PM
I think that by "parliamentary," he meant "more like those cowardly communist Europeans!!!!"
Posted by: James Sweet | December 23, 2009 1:31 PM
"a system of government where in the ministers of the executive branch are drawn from the legislature"
The irony here is that Obama tried to appoint Gregg to the Cabinet (as Commerce Secretary), which would be a bit Parliamentary-ish, but Gregg turned it down.
The person who wound up with the post was not from Congress, but rather was the former governor of Washington State, who had been in a law firm at the time of his appointment.
Posted by: Jon H | December 23, 2009 1:39 PM
Stem Cell Research Ban - fixed. Yes.
Guantanamo Bay - sort of fixing that, maybe - Nope. Obama stood by while the right wing successfully made idiotic claims about terrorists walking our streets. They caved then, and they appear to be caving now.
Climate - working on it from science rather than stupid. Yeah, this administration isn't anti-science. Is that really an accomplishment?
Health Care - working on it in spite of the party of 'No' - What I've been reading is the health care bill is crap and the main beneficiary will be the health insurance industry. Please tell me I'm wrong. Really, I hope I am.
"Obama didn't so much move center as he just stood there and let others craft his seminal legislation. Now, it would appear, he can't quite close the deal."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped1222parkerdec22,0,1382289.column
World Opinion - could only go up after Shrub & Darth - Hell, I could have acheived that.
Iraq - we are getting out. Wasn't that deal was done by the Bush Administration?
Afghanistan - we appear to be targeting the real 9/11 asswipes but I'll withhold judgment for a bit. Isn't Obama doing what was going to be done when we reduced troops in Iraq anyway?
Economy - making progress much more quickly than expected. I don't really fault Obama for the economy, that's a big problem left by Bush and I'm not sure it's getting better.
I don't see Obama leading, on anything really.
Posted by: Owen | December 23, 2009 1:46 PM
Owen,
Then you aren't looking very hard.
Posted by: MikeMa | December 23, 2009 6:07 PM
Wake up, America! The country is actually being run by a cabal elected by more than half of you!
Posted by: Grumpy | December 23, 2009 6:46 PM
Ed,
A way to parse the first part of Gregg's statement is that a Government, under a parliamentary system, that is unable to push through major pieces of legislation would be vulnerable to a vote of no confidence and, hence, is unlikely to last. This makes US-style gridlock, particularly where the Executive and Legislative branches (at least one house of which) are controlled by different parties, an unstable situation that is unlikely to last long. Thus, I think that what Gregg is trying to allude to, albeit sloppily, is that the normal mode of operating in a parliamentary system (i.e. the party in Government can push through legislation with the party out of Government having little power to stop it) is somewhat akin to what we have at the moment.
One could, of course, respond that the present legislative majority in the Senate is not very solid in that it is only filibuster-proof so long as it has 100% solidarity among Democrats plus Senators Sanders and Lieberman. The counter to that would be to point out that coalition governments are quite common in parliamentary system countries. The resulting "bedmates" can be very odd indeed making for its own variety of "cat-herding" needed to get things done.
So, in the sense of having unified control of both the Executive and Legislative Branches (although you would be stretching things to really call the Democrats in the Legislature "unified") the situation is "parliamentary-like" although, to be sure, this doesn't mean the US has actually become parliamentary. I suspect that being more accurate in the description of our current political circumstances would have made it harder to encapsulate in a sound-byte, a situation that should not be unfamiliar to someone who has observed public debate of topics that are complex and technical.
Posted by: Greg | December 23, 2009 7:01 PM
I believe what Gregg is talking about is the ability of a parliamentary majority to ram through legislation with little to no effective oppositing, like the Labour and Conservative majority parliaments in the UK for the last 30 years.
Any parliament where there is a solid majority of one party (or a tight coalition) have few obstacles in their way when it comes to enacting laws. The House of Commons in the UK is a case in point. The second chamber, the House of Lords, only has the power to delay legislation somewhat and, of course, there is no executive branch to veto anything either. Whatever the Prime Minister want, the Prime Minister gets, unless there is significant opposition from within his own party.
So the opposition (minority) parties have no way of blocking anything and are left only the ability to score rhetorical points through vocal opposition and have to wait until they win an election.
But even if the Democrats were to act with a single purpose and muster 60 votes in the Senate for every bill, the Republicans still have the ability to cause many things to grind to a halt though procedures like putting holds on appointments and various other delaying tactics. So the Republicans *still* aren't as impotent as they would be under a parliamentary system, but it allows Gregg to whine some more about losing the last election so badly.
As I mentioned before, I actually would prefer a parliamentary system where things get done--if a party wins an election they should be allowed to carry about the policies they campaigned on--anything over the creeping paralysis that's been going on in the Senate for this past couple of decades.
Posted by: tacitus | December 23, 2009 7:23 PM
Perhaps Mike, I just don't see it.
Posted by: Owen | December 23, 2009 7:29 PM
Matt Yglesias makes a pertinent related point about the American system:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/12/do-open-primaries-reduce-polarization-should-we-want-to.php
Posted by: tacitus | December 23, 2009 8:28 PM
Mr. Gregg evidently had no problem with the ideological supermajority that held sway from 2001 until 2007.
Posted by: Shay | December 23, 2009 10:01 PM
Shouldn't one of three bloggers be showing up to berate Umlud for "misogyny" right about now?
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 24, 2009 3:15 AM
I love it when Republicans use words like "ideological", "biased" or "partisan" as insults. Yes, thank goodness they're all to high-minded to engage in such behaviour.
Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | December 24, 2009 6:34 AM