Barclay Palmer
AC360 Senior Producer

Here we have "No Drama Obama," elected by the biggest majority Dems have seen in oh-so-long, about to take office, focused on hitting the ground running with a bi-partisan plan to fix the worst economic crisis since the Depression.. So why have Congressional Democrats been giving him so much lip? And where's that famously bare-knuckled Rahm Emanuel– still warming up in the heavyweight changing room?

Take Durbin. Nice guy and all that. Against seating Roland Burris in the Senate, before he was for it, before he was against it, and now? Ready to seat him, saying "we want to be fair." One option might have been to avoid fanning the fire at the Burris side show - distracting the nation from the President-elect's efforts - and Durbin's other, perhaps more important job - of figuring out how to get the nation out of this mess? (Good job on camera, though!).

And then there's Diane Feinstein, against Panetta for CIA before she was for Panetta-for-CIA-Diane Feinstein. True, you weren't consulted like you should have been. One option might have been to take it up in private. Does taking a slight public make a public official seem a bigger force, or not? Any case, in turning around and saying she now supports Panetta because he will "speak truth to power,” makes one wonder what the fuss was about. But not for very long.

And then John Kerry and Tom Harkin, who unlike Obama ran unsuccessfully for president, and the not as well known Senators Ron Wyden and Kent Conrad publicly criticized the Obama team's proposal to include tax cuts in the stimulus plan.

Yes, there is often value in airing differences in public. That's democracy, right? Hey, next time you could go straight to the press conference and hold your next meeting in public. We'll even offer a CNN Town Hall forum.

But all the conflicting voices raise a couple questions. Are Congressional Democrats setting themselves up to look like obstructionists again? In focusing on their own immediate concerns, do they risk losing the bigger game? Do they think Bill Clinton's success in moving to the center and winning Republican votes offers a useful object lesson.

For that matter, do they think Obama's effort to present an at least somewhat bi-partisan solution to the economic crisis has value... enough value to compromise? Or maybe the bigger question is this: will the Dems in Congress focus on bigger, more difficult job of fixing the economic crisis, or on the easier, but potentially self-defeating, job of getting their opposing views heard as often as possible on TV?

Under Karl Rove, the GOP was famous for maintaining party discipline, staying on message, and winning with one voice. The Democrats, on the other hand, have been compared to the Tower of Babel.

Perhaps Clyburn offered the telling clue on Friday when he said, "Democrats are going to be Democrats. Don't you expect the Democrats to act like Republicans. We're creative thinkers. We don't believe in group think."

Fine. But can you imagine a quarterback saying that right before winning the Super Bowl?