Congress is a hard-scrabble battlefield where members fight for what they think is right and for their constituents’ interests. I want them to fight hard. The gravity of the issues warrants it.

Let’s take Iraq. When it comes to spending $ 2 billion a week (a total of $ 400 billion thus far ) on a failed war that has claimed an estimated 600, 000 civilian lives and 3, 154 coalition casualties, including 2, 907 Americans, what makes anyone think arguments are not going to be heated in Congress and consensus difficult to reach ?