Obama, Congress May as Well Go Home

With 2012 campaign in full swing, neither the president nor Congress will do much governing until after the November elections—so they might as well just go home, and leave Washington to the pundits, the lobbyists, and the "professional, mid-level cadre" of bureaucrats who actually run the government anyway, suggests former New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg in a scathing op-ed on The Hill. Obama and members of Congress could just as easily campaign from their home towns, and a vacant Washington would at least "be a more honest expression of the reality of the status of governance for the next six months," writes Gregg.

Plus, Obama—what with "his zeal to find new groups to blame for our economic failures"—could start roaming the countryside, "blaming what he left behind." He, and members of Congress, could run against themselves, rightly blaming Washington, Congress, and the White House for our troubles—but claiming "no residency and thus no responsibility." "Washington would be appropriately excoriated as the problem even by those who are there, because they would not be there," Gregg writes. "In addition, the American people might find this refreshingly honest." Click for Gregg's full column. (More President Obama stories.)