One Utah

As expected (and predicted by many) the bobbleheads on the networks are yammering about the need for “bipartisanship”. I keep hearing from my various Republican friends and acquaintances similar requests usually followed by a statement along the lines of “I’m tired of all this partisan bickering.”

That’s rich from the party that impeached Clinton, that has spent the last eight years running roughshod over the Constitution and calling anyone and everyone who disagreed with them traitors, terrorists and, if they were in a really good mood, just plain old anti-American. In the just completed election, as John from Americablog described it,

After eight years of having Republicans call me an un-American troop-hating fag-loving socialist, after months of John McCain embracing the hate to a level where his own supporters were calling out for Barack Obama to be assassinated, no one is going to be permitted to tell me with a straight face that “oh you know, both sides do it.”

Your side was abominable. Your side was hateful. Your side race-baited. Your side gay-baited. Your side lied like we’ve never seen in recent presidential campaign history. Your side used a tax-cheat who would do better under Obama’s tax proposal to be your everyman on the issue of taxes. Your side, in a veiled effort at race-baiting, said Obama doesn’t put his country first. Your side had the audacity to call Obama a socialist. Your side suggested he was a Muslim. Your side suggested he was a terrorist. Your side suggested he was Osama bin Laden.

Spare me the crap about how both sides do it. You people are a disgrace, you’ve been a disgrace for eight long years, and all your hate and lying and venom and vitriol finally bit you in your collective fat ass . . . You are the party of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity. Angry, bitchy, bitter and elitist. What do we have to compare? Jesse Jackson, I often hear from my Republican friends. Um, maybe in 1980 when he was relevant. It’s been 28 years, got any other examples? Michael Moore, you say? What has Michael Moore said - name one thing - that’s comparable to the filth that regularly issues forth from Limbaugh, Hannity and Coulter and, of late, McCain and Palin?

There is another side of course. Our elected Democrats have been terrible. They’ve sought bipartisanship as it is an end by itself. This pursuit has led to a number of false compromises - for instance the indefensible Iraq war authorization and more recently the not nearly as bad as it could have been bank Bailout bill. These are examples of Democratic leaders seeing bipartisan support as the goal rather than the necessary means by which to pursue legislation. In the process, legislation that is much worse than it should have been has been passed.

For a number of years now, we’ve seen our elected leaders pursue bipartisan solutions in the name of bipartisanship and deliver solutions that manage to embody the worst of both parties’ philosophy. The utterly dysfunctional bispartisanship of the last few years has gone hand in hand with increasingly vicious partisanship on the part of the Republicans and increasingly weak Democratic leadership (Tom Daschle is a good man but he had no business leading the caucus). Nancy Pelosi started off well opposing privatizing Social Security but has demonstrated an increasingly ineffective dedication to bipartisanship. Rather than forcing vote after vote on Iraq withdrawal down the Republicans’ throats, she’s held played a weak game of defense. Let Bush veto popular measures, let the Republicans filibuster them. Play the game. Instead, knowing a bipartisan bill couldn’t come to pass, Pelosi has shied away from bringing it to the table.

Partisanship - truly principled partisanship - isn’t a problem. A good partisan fight in DC isn’t a sign of failure - provided the fight is grounded in principles and waged in a principled way - it’s a sign of success, the sign of a vital and thriving system. The sad political reality of our day is that the Republicans long ago decided to not play by any rules except “Win at any cost. Say anything. Do anything. Smear anyone. As long as you win.”

We’ve seen this scorched earth approach from the Bush Administration for years now. We saw it from Michelle Bachman. We saw it from the McCain-Palin campaign.

The task of our generation is restoring faith in government, restoring public service to a place of respect in our society. That means restoring a level of decorum and mutual respect to our public debate. It means we need to hold both parties accountable for spreading lies and smears. We need to demand better of our public servants. It’s not going to be easy. But it can and must be done.

This entry was posted Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under American History, American People, Democracy. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.