Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer and political columnist Ezra Klein debated “Is Democracy in America Working?” in front of a full house at the Farmer School of Business on Wednesday night in a presentation by the student-run JANUS Forum.

Steeping his portion of the evening in history, Fleischer began by pointing out that the re-election of Barack Obama was only the second time in American history that three presidents in a row served two full terms. The only other time that happened was in the years 1801 to 1825 when Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were all re-elected.

“The fact that this has seldom happened suggests to me that democracy is working,” he said.

After discussing the peaceful transfer of power after the 2000 election, noting that even George W. Bush’s fiercest foes accepted the Supreme Court decision that gave him the Presidency, Fleischer jokingly challenged the premise of the evening saying, “To me, the real question is ‘Are our people spending too much time on Twitter?’ “

“Because we have adopted a Twitter mentality, we’ve forgotten about the good things,” he said, citing some of the legislative accomplishments over the last decade that required both political parties to work together.

Klein, however, contended that using the nation’s history of peaceful transfers of powers was “a somewhat low bar” to set to determine whether democracy is working or not.

Rather, democracy is a work in progress, and that it cheapens our our founding fathers to have so much reverence for them, pointing out that at the founding of the nation, neither women nor people of color, including the Native Americans, had the right to vote.

“Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, 21 were about expanding our democratic rights or our democratic procedures,” he said.

“It’s been a long process of perfection,” he said. “We should not be overly fearful of change,” he said. “Our democracy is still working to translate the wishes of the American people into law.”

Klein also challenged Fleischer’s assertion that the deep partisan divisions of the country are side effects of the Twitter generation.

“The rise of extremely polarized political parties is a new thing,” he said.

During his time as the press secretary for George W. Bush, Fleischer served as spokesman during the historic presidential recount, Sept. 11, two wars and an anthrax attack at a postal facility that handled government mail. He is the author of the book “Taking Heat,” which recounts his years in the White House.

Klein, who focuses on domestic and economic policymaking in his columns for The Washington Post, is also a contributor to MSNBC. In 2011, Klein’s blog, Wonkblog, was the most-read blog at The Washington Post, the same year GQ named him one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington.

The JANUS Forum, a student-run organization that is a central component of the Thomas W. Smith Project on Liberty, Democracy and Citizenship at Miami University, is designed to be a catalyst for developing timely, interesting and rigorous discussion of public affairs.

“The JANUS Forum itself is designed to challenge students in a respectful, intellectual and honest way,” said Tyler Sinclair, a master’s student in political science and moderator for the discussion. “It is always important to challenge ourselves to think from different points of view and in a new way. That is what the JANUS Forum brings to Miami.”