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November 03, 2004
The Fetishization of Bipartisanship
As always in the wake of a Republican victory, the calls have begun for bipartisanship. I don't discount the sincerity of these calls, but I know that they're not looking for real bipartisanship. What these calls are really for is the Republicans adopting their agenda and calling it bipartisanship. Don't believe me? Look at how the conventional wisdom informs us that President Bush never tried to reach across the aisle after the 2000 election.
It's not as if President Bush ever
- appointed Clinton judges to appellate courts after they had failed to win approval from the Senate during Clinton's term
- invited Ted Kennedy to the White House and worked extremely closely with the Senate's biggest name liberal to create the No Child Left Behind Act
- appointed a Democrat, Norm Mineta, to his Cabinet
- left a Democratic appointee, George Tenet, as Director of Central Intelligence
You see, that's not bipartisanship. Why? Because it didn't go far enough. When Democrats call for bipartisanship, what they really mean is that they just want to get their way, but with Republicans in power, they'll need a little help from the other side of the aisle. In all seriousness, given President Bush's moves in 2000 and the response they garnered from the Democrats, who promptly moved to keep Bush judges off the bench and who worked extremely hard to stalemate his legislative agenda, just how far would President Bush have had to go in order to earn the Democratic seal of bipartisan approval?
Put another way, what's more important, your principles or your procedures? Bipartisanship is a procedure, nothing more. If you had a choice of getting 75% of your agenda approved on a straight party-line vote, or 50% of your agenda and 50% of your political opponent's agenda approved on a 75-25 bipartisan vote, which would you choose?
If you chose the latter, you're either lying or criminally naive. If getting more of your agenda passed into law requires less bipartisanship, you'd damn well be prepared to throw bipartisanship to the wolves, unless you don't really believe in your agenda. The men and women who go into politics generally honestly believe that their ideas are in the best interests of the country. Honest folk can disagree as to the accuracy of those beliefs, but there's no getting around the fact those beliefs are there. And if the choices are partisanship and getting those beliefs enacted, or bipartisanship and seeing your ideas cast aside, the only rational choice is partisanship.
Bipartisanship is a process. If you can utilize it to get your programs enacted (as President Bush has done with many of his programs, to include tax cuts and education, as well as the vote to go to war in Iraq), that's great. But if it takes some party line votes to close the deal, then there's no profit in getting upset about it.
Particularly when bipartisanship also gives people like this more opportunties to screw you.
Posted at November 3, 2004 02:44 PM
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» Bipartisanship and mandates from Horologium
Andrew Olmsted has an interesting post up about the call for bipartisanship currently being issued by some of the leaders of the Democratic Party. He notes three specific instances of Bush attempting to work with the Democrats upon assuming office:... [Read More]
Tracked on November 7, 2004 08:30 PM
Am I people like this?
I actually call for bipartisanship all the time, no matter who is in charge. I liked Clinton being forced to work with the Republicans. It comes from my belief that noone is always right and talking it out is better.
Posted by: Scott at November 3, 2004 03:10 PM
In an ideal world Scott would be right. Unfortunately, our world is far from ideal. Some of the media were immediately talking on Wednesday about the fact that Bush is now a lame duck President. Does this sound as if cooperation is within their ken? They were already speculating on who the Democratic challengers would be in 2008! Kerry's call for working more closely together sounds good but so do most of Kerry's ideas for the country. The problem is that I don't believe Kerry is sincere based on my following his career over the last twenty years.
A lot of the intense hostility in congress goes back at least to the Watergate years. Ever since then there has been a game of political gotcha between the two major parties. How many people realize that the latest Bush administration is the first without a major cabinet member being indicted since the Johnson years? The whole idea of a special prosecutor got way out of hand over the last two decades. Peace, or at least some semblance of it, will only come when a new generation of actors comes on the stage without the leftover political baggage of the last couple of decades.
Posted by: dad at November 4, 2004 09:28 AM
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