Digby: Taking Out The Trash

DemFromCT has an interesting post up this morning over at Daily Kos discussing the rise of hyper-partisanship. He quotes an interview with the authors of The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track,Norm Ornstein and Thomas Mann:

Is the current Congress demonstrably more partisan than those in the past? Why does it matter?

MANN: Partisanship particularly increased after the 1994 elections and then the appearance of the first unified Republican government since the 1950s. Now it is tribal warfare. The consequences are deadly serious. Party and ideology routinely trump institutional interests and responsibilities. Regular order -- the set of rules, norms and traditions designed to ensure a fair and transparent process -- was the first casualty. The results: No serious deliberation. No meaningful oversight of the executive. A culture of corruption. And grievously flawed policy formulation and implementation.

It really can't be overstated how Newt's bare knuckle style of politics changed the way things worked in Washington.