Others (changes) have made congressmen more frantic and timorous. But every change has in some respect caused Congress to become more difficult to run. Right now there isn’t anyone in charge, and there may never be again.
— Gregg Easterbrook, “What’s Wrong With Congress?”, The Atlantic, December 1984.
That House started to crumble,
it had been told it was decaying
years ago, often, always in vain,
its members made speeches in
praise of its architects, they
lauded the House’s foundations
and its builders even as they
fell into the holes and cracks
until, finally, the ceiling they
were saluting collapsed and
fell on them.