Letters.

LET'S LAY BISMARCK'S BROMIDE TO REST

Editor:

I agree with Alan Rosenthal in your September 2001 issue that Bismarck's statement about sausage and legislation ought to be laid to rest, but for a different reason. It's not that it is a bad metaphor, but it is an expression of disdain for the legislative process.

Bismarck's statement is not a metaphor; it is more a simile. Lawmaking is like sausage making in this regard: It is not pleasant to watch. If one accepts the value judgment in this comparison, it is actually a very good one. Grinding up and packaging of all sorts of animal parts is not, to say the least, appetizing. By the same token, Bismarck implies, the chaotic, slap-dash, compromising making of laws is not, to say the least, a pretty thing.

But we should not accept the value judgment of a man whose political career was spent resisting democratizing forces. In 1862, he said, "The great questions of our day cannot be solved by speeches and majority votes ... but by blood and iron." Many great...