Not always an easy thing to do, of course, but it is helpful, especially when the stakes, as in politics, can be high.  Here are two examples of struggles to keep an eye on the big political picture.

     The New York Times and the Jefferson Raid:  This morning the Times seems to struggle more with its original insouciance in the matter of the FBI raid on the Jefferson office.  "One Man's Constitutional Crisis," New York Times (May 26, 2006).  A few days ago, the Times did not bother too much with it:  it was all a matter of negotiating "ground rules," and the strident complaints of lawmakers were a "stretch," overstated.  Today, the Times believes that we have a "real problem," and it is undoubtedly influenced in this view by news, reported yesterday by Roll Call, that the DOJ has been discussing investigative "interviews" with lawmakers in a search for the source of leaks to the Times about the NSA surveillance program.  John Bresnahan and Paul Kane, "Hill Targeted on Leaks," Roll Call (May 25, 2006).  Now the stakes have become clearer:  the big picture has come into view.  "The F.B.I.," the Times writes, "is going to have to show some very good reasons for having precipitated this showdown, since "Federal investigators have managed to prosecute many other officials for corruption over the last 200-odd years without ever barging into Congressional offices in the process."  

     Still the Times does not wish to credit dreaded politicians with too much constitutional backbone, and so it veers back to the insistence that as much as this is a "real problem," the "constitutional claims made by the Congressional leadership…seem overblown."  And yet, lines before, the Times characterizes the Bush Administration as "an imperial presidency"—which would seem all the more reason to take the separation of powers issues here seriously, very seriously.  That is a good part of the big picture, now somewhat more visible to the Times.

     The Reform Community and the Rights of Voters:  Yesterday the FEC concluded that it should not apply federal regulation to the conduct of get-out-the-vote activity conducted by a local party committee, for the benefit of named municipal candidates, on the eve of a municipal general election in Long Beach California.  The reform community, having objected to this permissiveness, took to the blogosphere to complain.  This could be the beginning of trouble, Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) suggests:  the makings of a "huge loophole."  Because the municipal election is scheduled for the same day, June 6, as statewide federal elections, the voters encouraged to vote for specific local candidates, in municipal elections, will have the chance to vote, too, for federal candidates.  Any soft money paid to motivate them in the one election will also have facilitated their vote in the other.  This is the "loophole," apparently "huge."

     Mr. Ryan and the CLC believe that the FEC’s legal conclusion was wrong, and that there is still time to narrow the agency’s ruling to limits its dangers.  The solution he advocates is to read the rules so that voters can be notified of the date of the election, but denied information, which would be excluded from mail and "autocalls," about polling hours and location.  This additional information could be provided, on Mr. Ryan’s reading, only if the local committee complied with federal financing restrictions.  The federal government would step aside only on the condition that voters are prevented from information about where to go, and when, if they wish to vote.  This is hardly keeping an eye on the big picture, is it, when the law is enforced against the voters, denying real information about voting in the name of attacking chimerical "loopholes"?

Bob Bauer