Bi-Partisanship
I really hate the word “bi-partisan,” both because no one really uses it right, and because, when used properly, it’s simply redundant. In the vernacular of political journalism, “bi-partisan,” is basically a fancy word for capitulation. That is, journalists think you’re being bi-partisan when you simply acquiesce to what the opposing party wants in some sort of, I suppose, magnanimous gesture, and that’s the sort of assumption being worked under here.
In reality, “bi-partisanship” should simply mean governing. “Working across the aisle” doesn’t mean giving the pther party whatever they want, and if it did, we’d presumably get a sort of reverse gridlock where the two parties are arguing that the other is being too benevolent. What it does mean is that you set priorities, you know what you want in a bill, and you try to find areas of lower priority in which you’re willing to compromise with the opposition in order to get what you want in terms of the larger priorities. In other words, it’s simply being good stewards of government. That’s why the meme that Obama is somehow not really bi-partisan because he’s only worked to pass “liberal policies,” like working with Dick Lugar on nuclear proliferation, whereas McCain has gone against his own party, to a degree, doesn’t make any sense, and it’s certainly not an endorsement of McCain’s leadership abilities by any stretch of the imagination.
But it also belies a nasty little secret of the GOP, which is that they have no interest in governing, and even when in power they simply seek to obstruct the public infrastructure as opposed to conducting the business of the people. More liberal voices will often lament that the Democratic Party is too timid with Republicans in Congress, but on some level I think that misses the point. The problem with Democratic leadership is that they want to govern, and they assume Republicans have similar desires. So they go about legislative matters under the assumption that they will be sensible negotiations on policy, conducted in good faith and with both sides desiring to craft a bill that achieves the most that either side wishes to achieve possible. But the complicating factor is that that’s simply not how Republicans envision the process of governing. They’ll take what they can, or they’ll simply obstruct. A sensible party, for example, might have agreed to pass a updated FISA law without the complicating telecom immunity provision, and subsequently put up a new bill providing for telecom immunity. Instead, Republicans took a tyical all or nothing approach, threatening to kill a bill they had previously deemed crucial to the security of the American people unless they got immunity for corportate communications entities. It’s highly effective exactly because Democrats want to govern, and just aren’t particularly interested in playing the silly framing games that Republicans engage in. But there’s nothing “bi-partisan” about voting with the opposition for the hell of it. Being a right-wing extremist and a Democrat doesn’t make you a centrist, it makes you a right-wing extremist.
“The problem with Democratic leadership is that they want to govern…”????????
Are you KIDDING me? Democrats in Congress decided that they would rather go on VACATION than have a debate on an energy policy. The American people are SCREAMING for there to be an actual debate in Congress to help with rising energy prices. Pelosi and the other Democrats turned off the lights, speakers, and microphones so that the Republicans could not have a debate on the issue. Despite all this the Republicans still remained giving up their vacation (unlike the Democrats) and had debate and descussion. Pelosi REFUSES to call Congress back into session because she doesn’t want anything DONE about the energy problem in this country. Pelosi knows that there is enough support in Congress and the COUNTRY AS A WHOLE to pass a bill that will allow drilling on the OCS.
Even now that the Gang of 10 (what a crock) has come up with this “bi-partisan” bill (i believe you wrote a remark on bi-partisanship) that really only makes it seem that Democrats care and want a deal on this issue. When in reality if they cared they would go back to Washington and have a real debate on the issue. This bill will only keep the issue out of the election and keep Barack Hussein Obama from looking like the complete idiot that he and Pelosi really are.
Well yeah, Congress is on “vacation,” that’s what Congress does every August. And Bush is hanging out in Crwaford, like he does every August. And John “I talk like to talk about being a POW” McCain’s campaign is inserting the fact that he was a POW into another totally irrelevant, unconnected, context.
But substantively, yes, energy is an area where Democrats want to govern, as opposed to pander. Whatever the “country as a whole” wants, legislatively, is for better or worse, irrelevant, because we thankfully have a representative democracy, as opposed to a direct one. And energy is a great example of why that’s a good situation; if we had a direct democracy we’d probably already be tailoring a policy around drilling and patting ourselves on the back, because most people aren’t energy experts, and so they might actually think drilling could have a meaningful effect on prices. But if you dig up actual energy experts who aren’t paid by an oil company you can pretty easily learn that that’s not the case.
Of course, that’s not all that plays into it; gluttony and laziness almost certainly play a part too. The best short term solution is sensible, widespread, conservation practices, but that makes Billy Bob do something/give things up, which most people don’t want to do. And so they’re more susceptible to the people on the radio who might very well be taking money from energy companies telling them that they should “consume energy the way Michael Phelps consumes calories,” without taking a second to think about the result of that, or bothering to remember that we all know you can’t get something for nothing.
-Brien