bipartisanship

Whenever Washington politicians get together on something "bipartisan," there's a very good chance it's a lobbyist-driven initiative - one that will enrich the lobbyists'' patrons, generate campaign funds for pliant politicians, and stick it pretty much everyone else.

Want to know where a "bipartisan" bill comes from? Follow the money.

Scene of the Crime

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While Fiscal Commission Co-Chair Alan Simpson’s revealing gaffes remain a welcome political gift for opponents of Social Security and Medicare cuts, his staying power in elite policymaking circles only attests to the sad and distorted state of our nation’s fiscal debate—and the powerlessness of mainstream America within that discussion. That Simpson was probably the most prominent Republican President Obama could find to chair the Commission, is just the latest sign of how Democrats have had to define “moderate” down to slightly-left-of-nutjob.

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What would legendary House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill (D-MA) do, if he were here right now? That seems like an important question to ask now that President Obama has invoked the 1983 Reagan-O’Neill deal on Social Security as a model of responsible, bipartisan “entitlement” reform. But in order to understand what O’Neill would do, we need to accurately recall exactly what he did and the circumstances in which he did it. A closer look at the history reveals that President Obama has a lot to learn if he is to live up to O’Neill’s legacy.

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Mr. President, you moved a nation today with your words in Tucson. "Rather than pointing fingers or assigning blame," you said, "let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."

You also said this: "It's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."

Two weeks from now the State of the Union address will be an opportunity to bring Americans together - Americans who have been bitterly divided by party loyalty and ideology, but who stand united in their support for the social programs that have improved our lives for the past seventy-five years. On that night, will they know that somebody has heard them? Will they feel that someone is talking to them? Will they feel they have a voice inside the Capitol rotunda, in a city where they sometimes seem to have been forgotten? more »

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Economic policy has faced grave challenges over the past two years, hamstrung by obstructionist Republicans in the U.S. Senate and Wall Street-friendly advisers in the Obama administration. With the Republican Party now in control of the House, it seems certain that any major action to create jobs will face tremendous obstacles. This is a global calamity. more »

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Evan Bayh abruptly announced he was quitting the Senate days before the filing deadline for his Senate seat, without notice to his constituents, to his colleagues, to his party's leaders or to the White House. He deprived the Democratic voters in Indiana who had voted him into office of the opportunity of choosing their own nominee. Nice work.

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While President Obama has yet to tell his progressive grassroots supporters directly, his words and actions make it clear that he wants progressives to stop working to elect Democrats. The problem is that Obama has a strange, overwhelming bipartisanship fetish. more »

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I have been struggling since the election to write the big piece about "what it all means" but others here and elsewhere have said it all so eloquently that I've been stymied. It goes without saying that Barack Obama's win is a great victory for racial progress, and there is no doubt that the country has finally awakened from its post 9-11 trance. But what does it all mean for progressivism? I honestly don't know yet. The contours of this victory are still amorphous to me. I'm watching it unfold with excited interest and hope.

It's much more obvious to me what has changed for the right considering their epic fall from grace--- absolutely nothing. This is because in their minds they didn't actually lose --- liberalism did. more »

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For seven years, when Democrats were in the minority, there was nary a peep from the "punditocracy" about bipartisanship, despite strict party-line votes specifically designed so that Democrats would not cross over. Yet since the Democrats won the Congress in 2006, there has been a nonstop keening from the political establishment to stop the partisan bickering. This new obsession about bipartisanship, which blames both parties equally for the sins of one, comes at the moment of progressive ascension.

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