A View of Congress from the Economist Magazine

The Economist magazine has an article called "A Weakened Branch" about the US Congress. The article is essentially a review of a new book by Tom Mann from the Brookings Institution (a liberal think tank) and Norman Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think tank). The book sounds interesting and at some point I'll get around to reading it, but the reason I'm posting about this is a sentence that piqued my interest from the Economist article:

"Duels were once commonplace, as were fights with fists and firetongs. In the 1850s one senator beat another unconscious."

Call me nostalgic if you will, but would it be possible to go back to those quaint times when we could count on a duel or fight to take a lousy Congressman off our hands? I bet we could even get some decent betting action going.....and I'll supply the firetongs!

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