Musical Chairs: A Shakeup in Congress?

In the wake of Saturday's mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., a Democratic senator's call for both parties to sit together -- rather than divided by party -- at President Obama's upcoming State of the Union address appears to be gaining momentum.

Lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle Thursday evening backed Sen. Mark Udall's, D-Colo., idea.

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Noting that members of Congress have "a responsibility to set an example of less-ugly, less-divisive debate," Hoyer said the State of the Union is a potential opportunity "to recommit ourselves to approaching our public life with the respect and honesty that our serious, shared problems demand.

"I believe that members of both parties can symbolize our common citizenship and common interests by sitting together to hear the president's remarks rather than divided across the aisle by party," Hoyer said. "A gesture like this won't make partisanship disappear, nor should it -- democracy is built on strong disagreements between the parties. ... "But this gesture ... should help end the political theater of repeatedly seeing one side of the aisle rise in applause, as the other sits still.

"We must always consider ourselves Americans first, and Democrats or Republicans second," he added. "It is my hope that this new tradition can remind us that, no matter what our differences, we all come to Congress with the nation's best interests at heart."

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A start, personally I think they should all stay seated until the end of the speech.

A start, personally I think they should all stay seated until the end of the speech.

The music chair will turn into whack-a-mole.

The gesture is nice and feels all warm and fuzzy, but I would prefer to hear a speech by a president that does not insight partisan outbursts. Be an Ameican first Mr. President. wonder if he'll go after the SC again this year?

DAVID BROOKS: Because the chief dynamic in the Congress is the herd mentality, my herd and your herd.

I have stopped -- when a member of Congress starts telling me about the other the party, I almost want to stop listening, because I know what is going to follow is going to be false, because they just don't know the people in the other party very well.

And so they get this herd dynamic. And it is materialized in the way they sit together and meet together and react as one. And, if you actually physically interspersed them, I think it would defang that herd mentality, and actually have a material difference, because the geographical way they organize their lives is -- has an effect.

I was on the Senate floor before the session with a senator, and he was showing me the desks. And I wanted to go see the Kennedy desk, but he was a Republican. And he said, oh, it's somewhere over there. It's like he didn't quite know where it was, because it was on the other side of the floor. And that's...

DAVID BROOKS: Actions really change behavior. Thoughts don't, so much.

But, second -- and more deeply -- I think what has to come is a sense of humility, that the reason people behave civilly to one another is because, alone, no one has the resources to really conduct an intelligent policy, that you need the conversation, you need the back-and-forth, and that's where you get your meaning.

And, if you don't respect that conversation, if you think you can do it alone, your side has 100 percent of the truth, then of course you're going to behave uncivilly.

And if you don't have that humility, that sense that you need the other side, it's going to be hard to be civil. But we have to have that sense of civility, that we need the back-and-forth, or else we will be carried away by the falsehood in our own positions.

Why would he? Has the SCOTUS been engaging in judicial activism again this year?

So yours would be a no vote on further SC call outs, got it. Do you think he is capable of delivering a speech without making overtly partisan comments? Will he be able to pass up the chance to take shots at his enemies?

So yours would be a no vote on further SC call outs, got it. Do you think he is capable of delivering a speech without making overtly partisan comments? Will he be able to pass up the chance to take shots at his enemies?

“Essentially,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the dissenters in the 5-to-4 decision, “five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

A start, personally I think they should all stay seated until the end of the speech.

Will he be able to pass up the chance to take shots at his enemies?

Something wrong with Obiasmal exhorting his followers to 'punish their enemies?' I don't recall any liberal anywhere saying such a comment is uncivil or hateful rhetoric that leads to violence.

I like this idea. Or cut down on the outbursts by making a rule that instead of clapping you have to give a member of the opposition OT's. Other than Barney Frank this would probably make everyone sit there with a poker face.