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• Tuesday, November 18, 2008 01:13 PM

  It can be two things

  I don't think that anyone can seriously claim that we've witnessed bipartisan politics over these last 8 years. Examples of partisanship are many but the most glaring would be the Justice Department purges of early 2007 (this fits into a larger pattern of politicization of the bureaucracy) and the record breaking number filibusters in the 110th Congress. Furthermore, with people like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Tom Delay throwing their weight around how can this era be described as bipartisan?

  I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we've had both extraordinary partisanship and extraordinary bipartisanship over the last 8 years. The Republicans have been extremely partisan and the Democrats have been extremely bipartisan. I know how "partisan" it sounds to say that but the facts are there in abundance. Republicans have gotten even their most unbalanced proposals passed and the Democrats have found all but a very few of their proposals blocked. This trend can be found from legislation to appointments.

  If you reevaluate Obama's message with this in mind, bipartisan change means that the partisanship of the Republicans will no longer dominate politics. Instead, the spirit of bipartisanship that the Democrats have amply shown in supporting the extreme and dangerous policies of the president despite the protestations of their constituents will take center stage. We will move from having a radical right wing government to having a conservative centrist government (conservative meaning resistant to policy change).

  —theunbeatablekid Read theunbeatablekid's other letters
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