Quote of the Day: Earth to Obama…Bipartisanship has Failed
In contrast to some who are arguing that President Barack Obama needs to win over the center and somehow shake some bipartisanship into 21st century America’s political culture, some others argue that bipartisanship has failed, Obama has hurt himself for coming across as a political wimp who’s easy to be rolled and that he has to start to show a more ideologically principled fighting side.
Which brings us to our Quote of the Day, an argument laid out minus typical blogosphere rage-speckled polemics by Nate Silver:
Obama–who, incidentally, is not only a former community organizer fully conversant in the history of social movements and the resistance to them, but a former constitutional law professor and student of presidential politics–needed to recognize from the jump that a supermajority-worthy personal and public campaign had to be waged on behalf of healthcare reform. A few heads should have rolled, a few prisoners taken. Rather than worrying as she was today about disgusting and devious wiretappers, Sen. Mary Landrieu–no Senate titan she–should have spent the past few months worried about the Wrath of Obama. Joe Lieberman, ditto.
Meanwhile, there should have been a rollout explaining that reform was not only good for corporate employers and thus American productivity, but also for worker and workplace performance and, thus again, American productivity. He should framed reform in those terms–rather than as a series of vignettes, true and as sad as they may be, about people with dropped coverage or bankrupting bills–and then publicly dared Republicans and their tea-partying conservative allies to vote against a bill that would make the American economy and the workers who fuel it more effective, more efficient, more productive and more competitive because we would no longer lose time and money and paperwork and missed work days to a cobbled-together health care system constructed more or less around the time The Edsel rolled out.
…… Obama should come out with guns ablazing. Hope, bipartisanship, compromise and listening are great while campaigning as a presidential candidate. But this is governing by the President of the United States and, more specifically, presidential governing within a political system and during a partisan era in which truly progressive reforms will always need to clear more and higher hurdles…as this President–of all presidents–ought to know.
So which advice is the best? Partisans will argue this week; historians will judge based on what happens after this week.
77 Responses to “Quote of the Day: Earth to Obama…Bipartisanship has Failed”
Perhaps, bipartisanship died when McCain lost.
Quote of the day — thanks for the laugh. Nothing like squelching something that has been avoided.
I love the fake inspirational poster in this related article:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/26/imagine-me-an…
Well sure, being progressive by it's very nature is going to create more controversy and generate more noise from those who are less forward thinking. And while it's easy to coast and be more or less status quo during good times, it is exactly the wrong approach in times like these. Obama still has time to show he is capable of being the strong leader this country needs, but time is running out.
Bipartisanship died when Republicans refused to accept the Clinton Presidency and attempted to impeach him over a BJ. The Selection of G.W. Bush was the burial of Bipartisanship, no self-respecting democrat should trust ever a republican any further than they can throw an elephant…
Bipartisanship only works if both sides give a bit. Generally the strong tries to meet the weak in the middle first, then the weak has to do the same. The GOP have only dug their heels in at every turn, refusing to give up an inch of political ground. Nice to stand on principals, but after having given them the opportunity and been rebuffed the Dems need to proceed to ram things down their throats. Bipartisanship is nice, but if no one wants to play that game no point in wasting your majority playing pretend.
Yes, people decided to ignore decades of bipartisanship by McCain and jump on the silver tongue bandwagon of Obama. McCain's record is historic fact that one only need look up. Obama had nothing…no record…no experience…no idea how Washington worked….
but he gave neato speeches.
Luckily he is smart and a year wiser….he can still turn things around.
Thanks Don Q for another (necessary) trip in the wayback machine. That was a sorry time in our country's history and should have been enough to show anyone with functioning cognitive abilities what the priorities of republicans were and are. Allegiance to power has long taken a front seat to allegiance to country with them, and they've shown on multiple occasions how willing they are to make the country suffer for their false loyaties and bad judgement. Other than that, I would echo what Samuel Becker already said. Bipartisanship should be a desired means, but not a goal that should trump rational governing.
It was never the policies or the results of an Obama presidency that caused consternation among the republicans. It was the very fact that a democrat dared to sit in *their* office that made them go full stop.
Yup that was the moment in time McCain stopped being bipartisan and the rest of the GOP was more than happy to follow. So why should we be pleased that his “record of bipartisanship” ended the day he realized he could not use it to win a presidential campaign because he had lost the last one before he would be deemed to old? I once respected McCain and I agonized over voting against him but now its pretty obvious he is just another pol blowing in the poll winds.
Gee whiz…how to win over the center…think think think….hmmm…
Oh, hey! I know! Maybe if dems just remember that a mindboggling majority of people wanted the Public Option, no compromise, they could figure out a way to harness that momentum to get re-elected next Fall!
It sounds crazy…but it just might work?
Today we're going to hear the imminent passing of the public option announced. The dems cannot survive this Fall without passing it. And this is the sweetest form of democracy wherein voters like in Massachusettes can apply the pressure until their representatives take into account the 80% majority wishes of this nation's constituents on the left, middle and near-right of the political spectrum.
Any dem who doesn't support the public option is either trying to commit political suicide or has written off their job in favor of bribe money.
“Oh, hey! I know! Maybe if dems just remember that a mindboggling majority of people wanted the Public Option, no compromise, they could figure out a way to harness that momentum to get re-elected next Fall!”
The responsible “centrists/blue dogs/moderates” made sure such evil leftist take-over kitten-rape was a non-starter. Obama said “Fair enough”, which was their cue to continue screaming and making demands. And now Bayh is telling his own party to curl up and give the electorate the puppy eyes rather than try to fix the mess he and his pack created.
Yep, perhaps it did… bipartisanship died when McCain (a popular, moderate, bipartisan Republican) lost to the Bush 'Smear Squad'. Bush using his standard tactics (lies, smears… repeat as needed) still just barely beat McCain in the 2000 Republican Primary. Since then bipartisanship and moderate Republicans have completely disappeared.
Ya gotta love them republicans and their continuing attempts to rewrite history.
McCain went down that route himself.
Remember how Obama “Would have lost a war in order to win a presidential race” or whatever? Or what about electing Palin, the Warrior princess of the culture war?
Obama was the best candidate of 2008 and thus he deserved my support. But to a very high degree I supported him in order to spite his increasingly odious detractors. A person's worth can be gleaned from his enemies.
This is a fascinating thread.
There is no bipartisanship because the Republican lost the presidential race, says one.
Oh no, bipartisanship is lost because of the way Republicans treated Clinton, says another.
No, it was Bush who was the ultra-partisan, even against McCain, says yet another.
And the rest of us chime in to support one side or the other.
My question: how can bipartisanship be resurrected when even well informed TMV commenters respond to each other with partisan barbs about who is reponsible for the loss of bipartisanship? Even the issue of bipartisanship itself has become the object of partisan finger pointing. Can anyone say, both sides actively use partisanship for politcal advantage; both sides share responsibility for the decline of bipartisanship; and we won't see an end to bitter partisanship until not only the pols, but people like us as well, find ways to drop our partisan proclivities in favor of seeking principled accommodation of others' views.
Well from the get: There is no Center.
There is only Left and Right and never the twain shall meet, thanks to the Right.
Politics in America today is simply the convincing of America one side or the other, with the Right remaining stubbornly stupid and heartless. There is no middle ground, but there is resented and begrudged compromise. The United States needs to make a major move to the Left for our future’s sake. The Right opposes that change and delays the inevitable as long as possible as their constituency, (the ultra rich capitalists), glean as much wealth as they can, by whatever means they can, making nests in other countries as our demise into stagnation continues.
Moderate politics has become useless from the Right’s perspective and the Left’s frustration.
“My question: how can bipartisanship be resurrected when even well informed TMV commenters respond to each other with partisan barbs about who is reponsible for the loss of bipartisanship?”
Fortunately, at least some of the Dems in Washington are not only realizing, but professing the errors of their ways this past year (we'll assume they're being truthful, for convenience's sake), even though the extremists will never learn the lesson (these people actually have “learned” the opposite, as is true for taking over health care as it is about going too far left and overreaching this past year, as it is about the desire for bipartisanship, for a Change [tm]). We've even heard from some of these people that bipartisanship should not be attempted, but that the Dems should proceed (as they have already this past year, in reality) without GOP cooperation or agreement of any kind.
(Of course, many of these same people will change their silly story once there's a truly perceived need for political cover for future tax increases.)
What Rove did to McCain was sick. I never voted for Bush…for many reasons and this was one of them. If they were willing to do that to one of their own…they obviously had no boundaries. They were tapping our phones without warrants…insane.
Well we elected Obama to work in a partisan manner. We elected him to use the partisan weapons the GOP used to nearly destroy our country, thereby levelling the playing field. When something is broken from being out of balance, the last thing you do is add more weight to the lower side..
When damage has been mended, only then will the pendulum swing less wildly.
What about Obama and NAFTA? Sending people to Canada to make sure they knew he was flat out lying to the people of Ohio. Or what about his Iraqi war deadline? Then sending someone to the UK to say he was just campaigning.
All politicians lie…all of them. They lie to get elected. You just chose to see the lies of McCain because you wanted to vote for Obama. Obama lied McCain lied. Only one had a legit voting record.
I was so frustrated by the people who claimed that McCain had “changed”. Yes, a 70 year old man is going to just change his ideology in 6 months. Talk about completely defying logic.
There is no bipartisanship because special interest groups and corps like it that way. Keep us divided so they can steal our tax dollars. The biggest problem is that for every one of us that read and keep up on news and politics, there are 1000 Americans that can't place Kansas on the map.
Obama has had little help from his own party to be honest. I think the President has made a serious effort, but Dems like Harry Reid are doing their best to undermine any bipartisanship efforts. Granted, I still think the GOP is responsible for the most part, they never want to give an inch on anything, but this isn't all on Obama.
Shannonlee,
Ah, Kansas. The forgotten territory of the Louisiana Purchase, a deal completed sans bipartisanship.
Can anyone say, both sides actively use partisanship for politcal advantage; both sides share responsibility for the decline of bipartisanship; and we won't see an end to bitter partisanship until not only the pols, but people like us as well, find ways to drop our partisan proclivities in favor of seeking principled accommodation of others' views.
Hear, hear. Great post.
You want to know what my big moment was? When he suspended his campaign, the reason? He gained my support in 2k when he was careful about when he would announce his candidacy “for the good of the nation.” He very quickly showed me that my initial moment of appreciation for him was a political calculation and a lie. Then I had to look at his record on which he was most often “bipartisan” on issues I disagreed with. Despite that I did agonize over my decision because I had like the man for many years so spin it the way you want to but I know my own brain.
Do you have documentation of these lies or are we just reliving the campaign you can't let go of. On the NAFTA thing Canada was told that he would not chuck the whole thing not that “I was just lying” though that was a popular line in the campaign. Regardless I never thought he would touch NAFTA because I have been paying attention for the last couple decades and learned long ago little to nothing is done for the people but the corps get what they want and they want NAFTA.
For the most part you are projecting, you invalidated Obama and therefore want to continually prove McCain would have been better and just like the Gore supporters you will have plenty of ammo since time does not run in reverse for the idea to be tested. Also if all pols lie then why bother attacking Obama for it and at the same time defending McCain for it? That makes no sense, if they all lie all we have is our gut to judge what the best plan is and some of us wanted someone with decades of experience in DC and some did not, did you ever think maybe people voted for Obama because he had not been there for a decades? If you could have persuaded your own side to show up to vote then you would have no need to yell at the Obama voters but sure it was them for daring to disagree with you and voting that way. Also if you agree that he was lying about bipartisanship what other reason was left to vote for him short of that he had been in DC for decades?
What nonsense. Bipartisanship, such as it ever was, died when George W. Bush took office after being appointed by the Supreme Court.
You're right. I had said it died out when SCOTUS appointed GWB, but it had already died when the GOP impeached Clinton.
The Dem party has no more interest in being bipartisan than the GOP does. As long as they have total control Obama will be forced to deal with them exclusively or get nothing at all done. A good example of what would happen if he got gutsy and tried to play both sides against one another is Carter, his own party hated him and tried to ensure he was not even up for re-election for the crime of balancing the budget more than anyone else ever would again. This is also why Reagen was so popular among many Dems though, he spent money and if they were good he did so in their districts. If we want to see bipartisanship we need a more divided gov but even then in the current environment I doubt it would help sense I doubt the GOP can come down off the cliff they have perched upon without losing the support they are just beginning to gain. The nation is divided in almost violent ways so I am unsure how anything can be expected to be better in DC.
I actually do not agree with this, g.c. Not everything in life is this even-handed or balanced. I agree that trading barbs is not helpful (although I do it, obviously), but I think that objectively, when you're talking about extreme partisan division in American electoral politics, there IS a bread crumb trail you can follow. I mean, to some extent it's the nature of the beast in a system like ours, but having allowed for that, facts are facts. Historical events are historical events. They happened, and they have consequences.
It ended well before that moment that was just the moment most on he left took notice because the incivility was not hurting Clinton's nor Dem's numbers. It may just be my view though. I was disgusted and horribly upset by the 2k election results(because of the how not the result) but it took me until 2003/4 until I accepted Gore would have been better because I was not all that fond of Gore, I was a McCain supporter at the time. Still I noticed the extremity that both sides had begun to go through after the 90's. The GOP taught the Dem's how to hunt a president, sadly in doofus's case they need not have bothered. Now the GOP is teaching the Dems how they will act after the next GOP president gets into office and on and on we go. I can trace McCain's lack of bipartisanship to his loss in 2008 but DC's goes back to at least the early 90's and probably further but thats when I got out of high school so I may have missed some of the earlier stuff of this extremity.
I think you may be speaking of the history of Lee Atwater.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
You are correct about that.
But thank God we have Fox News, the most trusted TV news source in America!
THEY are Fair and Balanced.
Even after the 2000 fiasco, the extreme divisiveness that followed could have been avoided or at least lessened if GWB had governed humbly, as he said he would do during the campaign. But of course he didn't. He not only didn't have a clear mandate, which would be true in any close election but uncontested election. After the circumstances under which he was placed in office, he governed not only as if the election had been uncontested, but as if he had been given a clear popular mandate, as Obama was given.
Right.
Poor Barack Obama……..the man has to now follow on from the eloquent locquations of his legions above. Mind you, these same legions have propounded 24/7 for more than 365 days straight now on the lack of bipartisanship entirely being the fault of the Republicans……..and what have the voters done to recognize them for their masterful arguments?…….voted in more Republicans just about every chance they get. If the oratorical laureats of the TMV left cannot win over the public with their engaging ways and persuasive arguments, what chance does poor Barack Obama have tonight?
To be fair he was our president and had the right to take the nation anywhere he could convince they legislator to go short of breaking laws or just ignoring them. He did those things and I do take issue with that but Bush had every right to do everything he did out in the open and the voters had the right to vote against him next time if they did not like it. This is my way of saying up until 2003 almost everything he did was 100% legit and should not have been the cause for extremist rancor but of course I also believe the same about our current president that is not getting the same benefit of the doubt we gave to Bush.
He had the right, but was it a wise thing to do?
My Dear Ms. Kattenburg says, “Not everything in life is this even-handed or balanced.” True enough. Our disagreement on this issue goes way back, and I am not unmindful of that. It returns us to discussions about lack of civility in political discourse where many argued, as today, that one side was worse than the other. Then too, I took the position that both sides participated in the uncivil savagery of words and gotcha politics.
You would acknowledge, I think, that you tend to a liberal/democratic point of view. It is then likely that this issue would be viewed from that perspective. The same could be said for those of the right and their view from a different perspective.
The other day, I had a similar disagreement with DLS, where he was blaming dems & libs for something that I saw on both sides of the aisle (budgetary irresponsibility in that case). My response to him at one point was “I see two foxes, one in each chicken coop…” Same here. I think you are right; I think those on the right are also correct. But, most importantly, I think both sides are wrong to the extent they fail to see their side's participation in this unhelpful reality of hyper-partisanship.
There are many bread crumb trails. Some lead one direction, some the other.
Aside: Have you noticed that when we disagree we refer to one another as g.c. and Ms. Kattenburg respectively? I like that.
g. c.
Schadenfreude says, “… thank God we have Fox News, the most trusted TV news source in America!
THEY are Fair and Balanced..”
I congratulate you on an excellent sense of humor…unless, of course, you meant it…in which case I have a different opinion.
The other day, I had a similar disagreement with DLS, where he was blaming dems & libs for something that I saw on both sides of the aisle
I don't recall that particular comment of yours, but I do think that the “both sides do that” argument works better when the point at issue is something specific, like budgetary irresponsibility. Which doesn't necessarily mean I agree that it applies to that specific issue, but as a general point I think it's true.
Have you noticed that when we disagree we refer to one another as g.c. and Ms. Kattenburg respectively? I like that.
I hadn't noticed that it was just when we disagree, but now that you point it out, I think you are correct.
I did not agree with his policies(speaking of the tax cuts here because I had lived through the first Bush recession and thought it wiser to save money) and in many situations I thought I could see where we were gonna get screwed, and in the long run did, but the voters put him there to try his ideas on the nation and I do support that principle and still do. Right up until Harriet Miers that is and even then it is technically between him and the ballot box not whether or not he has the right, he gained that when placed there.
I also wondered if S. was serious, but decided to give her/him the benefit of the doubt. The remark struck me as ironic; it sounded ironic, so I decided to take it as such. In the interests of peace and harmony, you know.
That's not a critique, btw. Just an addition to your commentary.
Well, but, that's the issue, is it not? Whether it's accurate to say that the voters put him there. Did they?
I have my opinion but to be honest that horse is so dead it doesn't even exist anymore, and it truly pains me to say that. All that bringing it up does anymore is further incite those on the right to smear poo all over Obama in “revenge” and that is really what I believe a good many on the right have been doing for a good while now. I do think after a while they believe it but I think it began as retaliation and general GOP “this is no fair, no fair*stamps feet* I say” stuff that they have been rehashing since Rush figured out it worked in the early 90's. Bringing it up in anyway just makes any that do not utterly agree turn off their brains or bring out their swords so its kinda pointless, actually its just plan counterproductive. It could turn into a Dem version of “its not far its not far *stamps feet* I say” and that is a sure way to look like a loser.
I didn't say that actually. What I said was “bipartisanship died when McCain (a popular, moderate, bipartisan Republican) lost to the Bush 'Smear Squad'. I also said, “Since then bipartisan / moderate Republicans have disappeared.” I'm curious as how you read into my remark that “it was Bush who was the ultra-partisan, even against McCain”… Also, how is one “ultra-partisan” against someone in their own party?
While technically true, we aren't just talking any republican, we are talking John McCain with a long resume of reaching across party lines and building coalitions in the center. He was rejected for a very partisan teleprompter.
SteveK,
I am mindful of what you said, and you are right to call me on it. To the extent that I extrapolated to exaggerate a point, I apologize.
tidbits
Rubbish. Bush did not come in as a divisive figure, that happened after Iraq, and not the initial conflict, but the handling of things afterwards.
And moderate democrats are retiring, switching to republicans, or going independent.
“THEY are Fair and Balanced.”
All that's missing is John Wayne's voice (appropriated, ahem, for effect): “Fair! 'n' BALANCED!”