Re: Is the American political system broken?

Description: An old system in need of an update.

Transcript: Well there’s no doubt that a system that was invented by a limited number of middle aged white men about 200 years ago is being tested from time to time. And very few governmental systems survive for 200+ years without a lot of changes. Ours is very unique in that regard. However, as Winston Churchill once famously said about democracy – “It’s the worst system except for every other one” – the same is true probably of our own government. It may not be the best system. Maybe it’s the worst, except every other one is probably worse than ours. We have a lot of problems in our governmental system, but I don’t know of anything that’s really better. One thing that does concern me, though, is that when I came to Washington about 30 years ago, the Democrats and the Republicans, while they disagreed during the day, I think generally they were civil towards each other, and I think they recognized that each had a legitimate point of view in opposing the other side. Today the vehemence, the vituperative attitude towards each other is really, in my view, a bit out of control. And I do think that unless we can get the two parties to be more civil and to cooperate much more, I do think it’s going to be harder to govern the country under the kind of system that we currently have.

Recorded on: 9/13/08