http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101757.html?referrer=emailWashington Sketch
By Dana Milbank
Friday, May 12, 2006; Page A02
Alan Simpson left Congress only nine years ago, but he is already of a different era.
The former Senate majority whip, in town this week to give a couple of speeches, could hardly recognize his old home.
He was shocked to read that House Republicans wouldn't pass a mental-health bill because it had Democratic sponsors. "You've got to have rocks for brains to do that," the Wyoming Republican complained. "We never had that kind of thing. We just didn't do that to each other."
He was sad that lawmakers had forgotten how to compromise. "The phrase which is now prevalent here . . . is 'Don't get mad, get even,' " Simpson, now 74, told a small group at a Library of Congress lecture. "Those who say 'Don't get mad, get even' are sick, in my mind. They're not productive legislators; you have to learn how to compromise on an issue without compromising yourself."
And he was chagrined that the paralyzing partisanship had found its way to the Senate. House members, he said, "began to run for the Senate and they brought the venom from the House to the Senate."
Not that the new breed of haters -- "seethers," as he calls them -- will pay any attention, but Simpson thinks he has a solution. Together with other Senate old-timers, Republican Warren Rudman and Democrats Bob Kerrey and Bill Bradley, he's starting a new push for taxpayer-funded elections.
A NOSTALGIC AND TOUCHING STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE, FOR THOSE OF US WHO ONCE KNEW A DEMOCRACY....