Well, to be fair, in the previous Congress, the Republican majority existed by just as small a margin.

So, they get referred to as "do-nothing," because of their inability to pass substantive legislation due to a lack of a significant majority, but yet the Democrats don't receive the same label for the same reason?

You're exactly right; it's how the Framers constructed it, because they knew renaming a courthouse wouldn't infringe upon anyone's liberties.

That's why they made it difficult to pass laws advancing any significant ideological agenda; they had just escaped a government which had passed hundreds upon hundreds of "nuisance laws," and had no intention of allowing their new government to do the same.

Two hundred years later, in my book, my only quibble with the Framers' idea is that they didn't make it hard ENOUGH to pass laws; frankly, we don't need a United States Code that's 14,000 pages long.

I actually like this Congress, and the last one, for much the same reason: they haven't done squat. I greatly prefer a legislative body that can't get anything done over one that can, because the overwhelming likelihood is that I will disagree with anything they DO manage to get accomplished.

The longer they go without substantive legislation, the bigger the win for the American people in my book.

P.J. O'Rourke said it well, I think, although it's likely that I am somewhat misquoting him:

(about "creating a more perfect union,")
"The question is are we done yet? The big issue is not how Washington works, but how to make it stop."