National Perspective: Government dysfunction, 2023 edition

For days, the House dithered, debated, deferred, demurred and demonstrated what dysfunction means in a mature democracy that has been a model of stability and an inspiration to the world for centuries. Two years after hoodlums brought the Capitol to a standstill, the country's elected officials did much the same thing — without injuring anybody or anything but their own public image and, ultimately, the country they were elected to serve.

The Capitol standoff was one of the most peculiar spectacles in recent American political history, part of a quarter-century that has had its share, from a 36-day overtime election in 2000 to a months-long effort by a president to overturn the results of an election. Between the two were terrorist attacks, two wars in Asia, a pandemic and political divisions that had few antecedents in the life of the country.