The Senate Overachieves

By GAIL COLLINS
NYT

Good news, frustrated American citizens! Congress is not a clogged up, hidebound legislative slug after all.

Bills were flying through the Senate on Wednesday like great flocks of geese soaring into the turbines of a passenger jet.

First, the senators passed legislation that would keep all the federally financed highway programs from coming to a screeching halt when money runs out at the end of this month. (Completely unnecessary disaster averted!)

Then, the party leaders came to an agreement on easing a bottleneck of uncontroversial judicial nominations. (People with no enemies cleared for hiring!)

Some of you may be wondering how the judges got bottlenecked in the first place if they were uncontroversial. It’s a long story. But, basically, the Republicans, irritated about totally unrelated matters, vented their frustration by putting their feet on the necks of helpless judicial nominees, people without an enemy in the world, who just wanted to go in and help clear up the critical case backload in the nation’s federal courts.

(More here.)