Artful Dodger:

> Obama making less than a quarter of Senate votes .. etc.

I find that this is a symptom of a problem in the political system in the USA (and probably other countries too). An elected official (whether in Congress, the Senate, the Cabinet, or the President) is campaigning for office two years ahead of the election, in some cases even longer. That means that if somebody is elected to a 4-year term, they are spending 50% of their time campaigning. These people (and they belong to both parties) are being paid with tax dollars, and they are campaigning for two years while tax payers pay their salaries. Since political campaigning is fierce, it comes as no surpise that they neglect the job they were elected to do while they go out to campaign.