Budget bog: Time for pickoffs

SACRAMENTO — Whenever legislators become frozen in a budget bog, I remember the words of two historic leaders.

One was the 19th century chancellor of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, who said, "Politics is the art of the possible."

Meaning, as pundit William Safire put it in his "Political Dictionary": "the need for compromise, asking not 'what must be done' but 'what can be done.' "

My other favorite wordsmith was the "Old Perfessor," baseball manager Casey Stengel. He had been the celebrated skipper of the seven-time world champion New York Yankees, but in 1962 found himself managing the newly created New York Mets.

"You look up and down the bench," Stengel said, "and you have to say to yourself, 'Can't anybody here play this game?' "

Not many. The Mets set a 20th century record, still unmatched in the 21st, for most losses in a single season: 120.

Casey's question increasingly is being asked around the state Capitol. Can't anybody here play? The budget already is 42 days late. The fiscal year began July 1.

But to be fair, California's legislators are playing under much tougher rules than the Mets. The Mets didn't have to score twice as many runs as the other team to win. Legislators do to pass a budget. This state is one of only three that require lawmakers to muster a two-thirds majority vote for the budget.

Real world to fantasyland: There's hardly anything in today's society that is agreed on by two-thirds of the people.

The Mets also weren't handicapped by term limits. A good player was not booted out of the league merely because he'd been around for six years.

Today in the Capitol, there are two rookie leaders competing in the biggest game of the season: budget brawling. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and Senate Republican Leader Dave Cogdill of Modesto look a little lost, to be frank. No one should expect anything else.

Two veteran leaders -- Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) and Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines of Clovis -- are tearing their hair out in the extra-innings deadlock.

They're all trying to team with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has natural talent but still is a project and inconsistent.

Let's back up from baseball to Bismarck.

In 1990, Czech dissident Vaclav Havel -- later to become president of the Czech Republic -- followed up on Bismarck: "Politics can be not only the art of the possible . . . the art of speculation, calculation, intrigue, secret deals and pragmatic maneuvering . . . it can even be the art of the impossible. "