IRCPPS in the Links: A Crisis of Leadership or Institutions?

Steven L. Taylor asks if the United States' political problems are a matter of failed leadership or failed institutions:

...Congress has appeared unwilling to assert itself, something I have noted (and criticized) in the past.  Such unwillingness to more seriously confront the executive branch is a failure of leadership, to be sure.  However, I would argue that, on balance, this lack of actions is founded very heavily in a lack of adequate institutional incentives and ability to adequately engage the topics at hand...