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Thursday, April 21, 2011

Study Finds Congress Spends 27% Of Its Time Taunting

In this 2006 photo, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid gives a speech on the Senate floor. (AP)

In this 2006 photo, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid gives a speech on the Senate floor. (AP)

It may not be “your momma,” but sometimes it’s close.

In the course of their study on information processing, Gary King and his staff reviewed 64,000 congressional press releases. He and his Harvard team discovered that congressmen and women spend more than a quarter of their time on partisan taunting.

Professor King speaks with us about the details behind this distressing statistic and what it means for the political culture of the United States.

Other stories from Thursday's show

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

  • Chris Cooper

    But isn’t that what our members of Congress have always done? Doesn’t this trend all the way back to members of the English Parliament?

  • Chris

    Perhaps I am skewed by my affiliation (democratic leaning) but I see it as republicans out of control, divisive and standing in the way and democrats are fighting back. In my mind I remember the democrats as overall being more civil.

    ~ Chris

    Manchester, NH

  • Rick

    Civility in political debate.

    Vigorous debate is one thing, but questioning someone’s moral character, patriotism etc is another. Both sides seems to forget that demonizing and characterizing the “opposition” only as a “democrat” or a republican” is forgetting the fact that the person being demonized was elected by and represents his district’s citizens. Congress has always had its rough and tumble but at the end of the day there was a certain amount of respect for the office and for other Congresspeople no matter their views. This respect is hard to find these days.

  • vanthwaite

    Parts of this article were impressive. First of all, the fact that more than a quarter of politicians’ remarks are attacks is enlightening. I also liked the description of the three ‘I’ statements and the need for more ‘we’ statements. However, I was disappointed in the light-heartedness of the article. First of all, taunting is playground talk … it means teasing or provoking. The article was referring to offensive bullying and libel. For example, the first example you gave was downright malicious, using terms — willful abuse, deceptive, malfeasant — that spoke to the immorality of the party. While I support the Democrats, I am sure they make equally abusive remarks; Nancy Pelosi’s bland and provable statements gave fodder to the right-wing accusation of NPR’s liberal stance.

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