One more example of dysfunction in the United States Senate

From the Washington Post:

Last week, the U.S. Senate failed for the first time in 48 years to pass an annual bill authorizing money for national defense - not over disagreement about the part of the bill that would repeal a ban against gays serving openly in the military but on procedural grounds. Moderate lawmakers inclined to support the bill balked Thursday when a vote was called what they considered to be too soon.

Before that, the Democrats who control the Senate failed in their efforts to stop filibusters on three other bills, including one that would provide long-term medical care for Ground Zero emergency workers who developed health problems after helping victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In a single afternoon, the Senate rebuked two constituencies revered by both parties: the military and the Sept. 11 rescuers.

The confounding actions left many in Washington to wonder whether this was an example of the dysfunction that increasingly seems to paralyze the Senate, the inevitable consequence of having a largely lockstep minority, or simply poor strategy by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who put some lawmakers in impossible binds. Or maybe all of the above.

Here is a superb article on the dysfunction of the United States Senate by George Packer in the New Yorker magazine.