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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
If one side gives the other side everything they demand, I guess it's a form of bipartisanship. To me, when I hear bipartisanship I think about the two sides working together to reach some kind of middle ground. That's not what's happening here. The opposition party is failing to oppose, and I don't consider that bipartisanship, even if in practice the two parties are agreeing on everything.
Billary as Sec. of State, Lieberman as Chair of Homeland Security, Gates seemingly staying on as Sec. Def...
The more things change...
The truth is: Having people fight with each other is good entertainment. And where there is good entertainment, there is a lot of money to be made. Political partisanship is a big business. That doesn't make it a good thing for democracy.
Actually, the reason why people fight is because they have radically and irreconcilably different views over issues that are important to them.
Some people want to invade Iraq and some don't. Some want to outlaw abortion and others want it to be legal. Some want to bomb Iran and others don't. Some want universal health insurance and others don't. Some want to prosecute Bush officials and others don't.
The clash of different ideas is actually what "democracy" is all about. As unpleasant as you might find it, nobody -- not even Barack Obama -- will be able to wave a magic wand and make it all pleasantly fade away.
The problem is that we've had far too little clashing of ideas and far too much consensus. I can't fathom anyone thinking we actually need more consensus in our political class, but there are -- obviously -- plenty of people who crave that.
H/t to Jane Hamsher at FDL, this article by Chris Cillizza at WaPo (The Fix) says it all:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/11/the_lieberman_vote.html
Especially the prize quote:
Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question."
The Left? Yuh know, I'm getting pretty damn tired of being called an extremist by the party that is supposed to represent the left-of-center in this country. I ranted, I raged, I peppered my senator with my views. I'm an extremist. Someone who needs to be defeated by the Democrats. Are they going to call me a Socialist, tell me I've been palling around with terrorists?
None of this is based on anything approaching evidence. The Democratic party is the ultimate martingale, believing always that the best thing to do is what it just did. Change? That's extremist. At least there is this change: The Democrats are now going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after the election instead of before it.
The truth is: Having people fight with each other is good entertainment. And where there is good entertainment, there is a lot of money to be made. Political partisanship is a big business. That doesn't make it a good thing for democracy.-- wbgonne
The opposition of the parties is good for democracy just as the division of the branches is good for democracy. Fighting for the sake of fighting (GOP SOP) is not necessarily good, but partisanship is fine.
I don't necessarily see this as weakness on his part -- more like triangulation. Maybe he's determined to follow a centrist path on foreign policy and national security -- more moderate than Bush's but not anything that we would be happy with. With Lieberman at the head of the Homeland Security committee he has an easy excuse.
I agree with Glenn about the uselessness of the Democrats. Once the Franken recount is completed, my political pittances will be donated to "Accountability Now".
Only by replacing some key Democrats (and frightening the rest) can we get any leverage. Depending on events and the shifts of public opinion, that's a strategy that might work. The only one, really. If we're nice we'll just lose.
...the FD's (feck!n Democraps) will have so ticked off the ["Left", "base", steenking MAJORITY of the electorate] that they lose seats in the House/Senate.
Deservedly so.
FDs...
I'd take the critique even a step further. It's not merely that the whole change=more bipartisanship is a straw man and that congress is already more "bipartisan" than it should have been. Congress, regardless of party affiliation, has been abdicating its constitutional duties over a long period time, culminating in the failures Glenn cites. It's astonishing to read the constitution and then actually observe how the government functions.
The constitution clearly intends congress to be first among equals. On paper, congress has the power set the entire government agenda, declare war, control the budget, sign treaties, authorize cabinet positions and judgeships. As a matter of constitutional duty, they're SUPPOSED to tell the president what to do, and oppose him when he takes too much initiative on his own. The reality has been working its way toward 180 degrees opposite this for some time, finally arriving there with Bush. We're now in a situation where the only congresspeople who take their constitutional duties seriously, eg., Byrd, are treated as crazy people by their peers.
Given the alternatives, I think Obama was a pretty good choice for president. He's obviously smart and energetic. He's also less tainted by voting history and log-rolling than anyone else in the race was, so he has a chance to propose and try things without falling prey to the flip-flop game. However, it's important to remember that he spent the last four years advancing to a position of prominence in a fundamentally broken and corrupt organization.
His diagnosis of what is wrong with the government is a combination of the gridlock trope and the "judgement" of Bush and McCain. It's naive to expect some sort of paradigm shift in governance from him. He's made that abundantly clear from all the decisions so far that he has made directly or influenced. The best we can hope for is that he'll follow through on a reasonable percentage of his better ideas, make some good cabinet appointments, and not start any more wars. Change is just a campaign slogan.
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