The Issue: Democrats at last allow the US government to reopen after the longest shutdown ever. For 43 days, America saw a major party wallow, bellow and degrade itself for no good cause, as they have done before ( “Federal gov’t finally reopens,” Nov. 13). The Democrats are now a joke, and their “leaders” aren’t real leaders. Richard Klitzberg Boca Raton Let’s call this shutdown what it was — a failure of Congress to do its most basic job. I don’t care which party is to blame. Every member of