Luke Sharrett/The New York Times If the future of our health care system depends on Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat from Montana, and Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, the republic will surely crumble.

Gail Collins: David, when I went off on vacation I left you to converse with Dick Cavett. Really, what could be more fun? All the while I was gone I was imagining what a great time the two of you were having. Well, O.K., not all the time. But the thought definitely occurred.

Then I got back to the Internet-accessible world and discovered that you’ve been in a total funk. Your conversations with Dick were wonderful to read, but what’s gotten you into this decline-and-fall-of-the-Roman-empire depression? Every week, you got sadder and more discouraged about the country, the culture, the common good.

I know Barack Obama’s first year has been rough, but he still manages to be pretty perky, even though he’s required to have quality time with Dennis Kucinich. No fair being more depressed about the presidency than the president is.

David Brooks: First, I want to thank you for trying to talk me off the ledge. But I refuse to leave the abyss. I make Kierkegaard look like Kelly Ripa these days, I’m so morose. I’m going to have my Howard Beale moment.

I fully accept that maybe the problem is in me. You’ve just published a widely praised book. You’re just back from vacation. You have a balanced perspective. My book is due in four weeks. I haven’t had a real vacation in two years. I’ve spent more time in security lines than your average Gitmo detainee.

Gail Collins: Well, that explains everything. I was going to blame your mood on excessive travel. It is a well-known scientific fact that people who spend more than four hours per month in airplane terminal food courts experience symptoms of severe depression. But anybody with an imminent book deadline has a legal right to feel crazy. I think it’s in the Constitution.

David Brooks: But I persist in the belief that government is more fundamentally messed up than ever in my lifetime. Barack Obama campaigned offering a new era of sane government. And I believe he would do it if he had the chance. But he has been so sucked into the system that now he stands by while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about passing health care via “deem and pass” — a tricky legislative device in which things get passed without members having the honor or the guts to stand up and vote for it.

Deem and pass? Are you kidding me? Is this what the Revolutionary War was fought for? Is this what the boys on Normandy beach were trying to defend? Is this where we thought we would end up when Obama was speaking so beautifully in Iowa or promising to put away childish things?

Yes, I know Republicans have used the deem and pass technique. It was terrible then. But those were smallish items. This is the largest piece of legislation in a generation and Pelosi wants to pass it without a vote. It’s unbelievable that people even talk about this with a straight face. Do they really think the American people are going to stand for this? Do they think it will really fool anybody if a Democratic House member goes back to his district and says, “I didn’t vote for the bill. I just voted for the amendments.” Do they think all of America is insane?

Gail Collins: I refuse to have a debate about the deem and pass option my first day back. And I think that at bottom you’re really in despair over the U.S. Senate. You’re convinced the Democrats’ attempt to pass health care reform with just 51 votes will be the parliamentary death knell for a system that was based on respect, cooperation and bipartisanship.

I think you’re right about the Senate changing. I’m not sure it was all that great to begin with. But even if it was, the old system has outlived its usefulness. It just doesn’t suit the modern world.

The idea of a few senators getting together and working out the big issues of the day in private talks really depends on people never noticing that they’re doing it. In our hyper-communications era, we get to look too close. What we see isn’t wise men and women reaching a reasoned consensus over coffee in the Capitol. It’s Senators Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley yammering on the phone about the health care plan all summer. If the future of our health care system depends on Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley, we cannot be allowed to know about it. Otherwise, the republic will crumble.

We need a legislative system that works to the strengths of our new blog-laden, cable-TV-fixated world rather than its weaknesses. To me that’s a system in which political parties can communicate broad themes, and voters can choose between them. Then the party that wins has to have a reasonable chance of delivering. If voters find they don’t like the product, they will turn on the incumbents very quickly and replace them.

It’s a less elegant system than the one you like, but it has its virtues. If it works, it’ll be more accountable and more transparent than anything we’ve had before. Also louder, more unnerving and less fun for the legislators.

The problem right now isn’t a lack of bipartisanship. It’s a lack of ability by the people who got elected to deliver and then be judged on the results.

David Brooks: Something that’s even more depressing is people in our business. We pundits consult think tankers and experts and bloggers in hopes of getting an honest opinion. Many of the experts I consult have become party apparatchiks over the last few weeks. Pelosi says jump and they ask where they can check their intellectual integrity to lighten the load.

Yes, my own view may be distorted by the fact that I’m disappointed in the health care bill. But at least I violently opposed the nuclear option when the Republicans tried it a few years ago. I don’t think it is mere partisanship that makes me believe that representatives should have the guts to actually vote for the legislation they want to become law.

Either this whole city has gone insane or I have or both. But I’m out here on the ledge and I’m not coming in the window. In my view this is no longer about health care. It’s just Democrats wanting to pass a bill, any bill, and shredding anything they have to in order to get it done. It’s about taking every sin the Republicans committed when they were busy being corrupted by power and matching it with interest.

O.K. I’m done. Welcome back.