I understand the sentiment, but it seemed to me that the Democratic party was doing a fine job checking and stopping itself - the only reason I can see that they weren't just hammering through anything they could get their hands on as fast as possible was that they themselves couldn't agree on what they were doing. Even with their supermajority (which has now just been reduced to quite a big majority) they can't guarantee that they'll gather the votes among all their left-to-centre-to-almost-right members, whereas the Republicans are a lot more organized (under the threat of being thrown out if they don't vote a certain way, according to some memos) - and on the very opposite end of the spectrum, I have never seen a group of people honestly believe in their own voices, reality be damned, than the followers of the cult of Palin. That's why I'm not confident in giving any sort of power back to anyone that goes anywhere near them!