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Not So Fast – The Lodger

The Financial Times reports:

Republicans complain they are being forced into an artificial timetable that is reducing the chances of agreement. People on both sides of the committee, chaired by Chris Dodd, the Democratic senator, say the chances of the law being passed by the year-end, as planned by the administration, are slight.
“The more time we [take], the more intelligent regulatory process we’ll have . . . and I hope we’ll take until the first quarter of 2010 to actually put something into law,” said Mr Corker.

Tim Fernholz responds:

What in the world does he want to talk about? It’s not like Corker is pushing some specific agenda or has offered any major ideas, at least publicly. These issues have been at the forefront of the policy debate for a year now, and certainly have been bubbling underneath for a long time. If he doesn’t have any specific concerns, its hard to conceive of this as anything but a delaying tactic that simply substitutes vague delays for substantive engagement.

The ‘too fast’ complaint is a constant annoyance for me. The important thing you have to remember is that “too fast” is almost without fail simply code for “I don’t want this to happen.” There was an argument that something like TARP or the PATRIOT act were done too quickly and with not enough oversight. Those were bills where the perception (fair or not) of imminent threats got people mobilized to act quickly.

But 99% of the time, the one complaint you CAN’T leverage against Congress is that it moves too slowly. It’s an institution designed for a world where communication took place by horse or sailboat transposed into a time of cell phones and twitter and the blagosphere.

Take health care. After 2+ years of presidential campaigns where it was one of the two or three central issues. After almost a full year since a president and huge Democratic majority were elected on the back of a mandate to fix it. After 40 years since the last major reform to health care. After all that, you’ve still got GOP senators complaining about how fast this is all moving. If only there had been just a little bit longer to talk, then maybe something could have been worked out.

Of course, this is not helped at all by a media that absolutely adores the ‘too fast’ meme. It allows you to run a process story that SOUNDS like it contains meaningful content but does not actually require any digging. ‘Too fast’ itself serves as the complaint – no one ever demands that you articulate what precisely it is that ought to have been included. In general, there appears to be extremely little interest in questioning the motives of those making such complaints. And it’s understandable why. To identify this possibility would be tantamount to accusing them of making claims in bad faith, which is dangerously close to the l-word which must never be spoken.

I’ve talked before about the tension between my belief that there is value in discourse and the material reality of ‘discourse’ as performed in modern politics. So I don’t want to say that we should toss the ideal overboard, but at least in the case of this ‘too fast’ meme I do wish there was an expectation that those advancing it actually be prepared to discuss the content rather than form of their argument. To borrow a metaphor, we should trust but verify. Starting from the assumption that your opponent is speaking bad faith is a poor way to engage in public reason. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask that they actually uphold a good faith argument rather than mouthing platitudes.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum says basically exactly the same thing as me, literally while I was writing this. Though he also notes that Afghanistan is the one area where taking time to consider options is absolutely unforgivable: “Then it’s “dithering” and “playing Hamlet.”

UPDATE 2: Ezra Klein, too. Is there a run on making this point today??

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