It’s time to take stock of both parties in Congress. And it’s not a pretty picture on either side.

Let’s start with the majority. Congress is in near free fall in public opinion, with an embarrassing 22 percent approval rating (leading many of us to wonder what that 22 percent is thinking). The agenda is incoherent, and many of the policy products that are emerging--such as the shameful lobbying and ethics “reform” package and the tax cuts that require increasing the debt limit to a staggering $10 trillion while ignoring the looming explosion in entitlements--are poor or inadequate public policy.

Resident Scholar Norman J. Ornstein

Many other policy options, in areas such as immigration, are hampered by intense internal GOP divisions; majorities, even wide majorities, are available if the GOP leadership were willing to work across the aisle, but they are unwilling to forge compromises that include Democrats if they exclude a sizable portion of the Republican base.

On surging gasoline prices, the nervous majority is floundering, letting bickering over bad ideas such as the $100 rebate overshadow any sense that there is a real, sustained and honest effort to do something about the problem. And the ridiculously abbreviated schedule for both the Senate and the House this year isn’t helping.

If the public is unhappy with Congress’ failure to confront the real problems voters see, just wait until the Senate takes several days of the limited time that remains to debate flag burning and same-sex marriage. People are worried about losing their health benefits and pensions, watching their family budgets get busted by $3-plus gas and concerned about the situation in Iraq. But these will be shoved to the side to make sure the country is safe from all those potential flag burners out there.

True, for the first time in five years, we are seeing some small signs that Congress is taking on the executive. The objections by House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) to the president’s nominee for head of the CIA, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, followed by the fairly harsh comments by Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), are a new development and are, as much as anything, a reflection of Congress’ frustration over the lack of communication and consultation from the White House. Hoekstra’s objections were well reasoned and powerful, but there is scant evidence that Congress genuinely has gained a newfound confidence in its own independent perspectives and power.

Then there is scandal. It keeps getting more bizarre and now threatens to metastasize into a giant witches’ brew of arrogance, greed, venality and mendacity. The stink surrounding former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) keeps expanding, with defense contractor Brent Wilkes now allegedly linked to CIA officials, other Members of Congress and prostitutes. The handpicked No. 3 under former CIA director Porter Goss purportedly helped steer contracts to Wilkes’ company--and the limousine company that transported hookers linked to Wilkes and Cunningham (and perhaps others) was given a lucrative contract to drive around top officials of the Department of Homeland Security. We are not talking Department of Education here, but the most sensitive agencies in the government.

Now add the mess involving ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, which is getting even messier, thanks to Monday’s plea deal by Neil Volz, the former chief of staff to Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio). Soon, one expects, Members will be indicted, and it will not be pretty.

But Democrats should temper their excitement. If they do win, and that’s hardly a guarantee, their majority is likely to be tiny. Though Democrats say they will reach out to GOP moderates, they likely will win the majority in the first place only by knocking off most of those who remain, leaving precious few targets for a policy coalition. So Democrats will have to achieve the same kind of internal party unity the Republicans had throughout President Bush’s first term--more than 98 percent loyalty on a range of key issues.

Fat chance. If the minority Democratic Party cannot keep all its troops together on a partisan lobbying reform bill brought up under an unconscionably restrictive rule--losing eight Members on the key vote on the rule, and four Members on the motion to recommit with instructions--how can the Democrats possibly show the necessary unity in the majority?

The eight who voted for the rule were saying to the majority, “Go ahead--exclude us from deliberations and scuttle votes on any of our significant amendments. We’ve got your back.” The four who voted against their party’s motion to recommit--thus killing it despite the “aye” votes of 20 Republicans--included Rep. Mike Capuano (Mass.), the new head of the Democratic Caucus rules reform committee (nice irony there) and the Minority Leader’s strong allies, Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Martin Sabo (D-Minn.). What were they thinking?

If Democrats can’t unite under these circumstances, what they will be left with is subpoena power. That is still important, and necessary to keep the executive in check. For example, the Plan B embarrassment at the Food and Drug Administration cries out for some serious investigative hearings. But if my conversations with Members are any guide, there is a real danger here of overreaching in order to teach those miscreants in the White House and administration a lesson. Shades of 1998. The American people want Congress, whoever is in charge, to focus on the problems that grip the country, not on a war of the roses to see who can exact revenge on whom.

With the ethics fiasco, it should be noted, the scandal is not limited to one party. The Democrats have plenty of their own, including, but not limited to, Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.). The Democratic ethics plan that was incorporated in the motion to recommit created an Office of Public Integrity, but it limited its function to lobbyist reports. In other words, it’s the status quo on the ethics committee. If Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) remains ranking member (succeeding Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia, who has ethics problems of his own) and eventually becomes chairman, we’ll have an honest broker in the job. But the underlying dysfunction will continue, and there’s no clear sign that Democrats will be any more resolute at facing up to that dysfunction.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.