But as Mr. Boehner and Mr. Obama moved closer toward a deadlock over taxes and spending this week, many in Washington said Mr. Stombres could be a factor in preventing calamity.
"Ending the rally is the only way to prevent calamity".
Very few crises offer such a window of time to prevent calamity.
As a quasi-independent institution that is shielded from day-to-day political pressures, it can concentrate on the actual business of governing, and on preventing economic calamities.
That includes the participants of the big pension plans at United Airlines, which collapsed so catastrophically in 2005 that Congress responded with a broad overhaul of the federal pension law, in hopes of preventing such calamities in the future.
Hazlam Mills writes "the reformers greatly feared that, with Mr Tyas in prison, the magisterial party would get the first access to the ear of the country, and it was in preventing this calamity that the journalistic 'hand' of John Edward Taylor came into important use".
The action doesn't focus on preventing economic calamity.
Appeals to doing good or preventing future calamity are less likely to motivate than persuading and demonstrating the immediate human benefits of cleaner air, livable streets, and nature's presence in daily life.
These were common-sense moves — a timeout while a presidential commission figured out why the disaster occurred and recommended ways to prevent future calamities.
In fact, Thailand's 16th constitution offers a minutely detailed blueprint to prevent such calamities.
