Your Daily Digby: Bipartisan Zombies
We knew that as soon as the Republicans lost power---the gas-bagging Villagers would be opining for some phony form of bipartisanship. Americans clearly have rejected Republican ideals of governing since BushCo. has been such a complete failure and are looking for change, but that doesn't matter to the Broder's. This is an administration that has brought torture, rendition, preemptive war, illegal wiretapping and so many scandals that it'll take decades to sort it out. Now back to Digby:
Isn't it funny that these people were nowhere to be found when George W. Bush seized office under the most dubious terms in history, having been appointed by a partisan supreme court majority and losing the popular vote? If there was ever a time for a bunch of dried up, irrelevant windbags to demand a bipartisan government you'd think it would have been then, wouldn't you? (How about after 9/11, when Republicans were running ads saying Dems were in cahoots with Saddam and bin Laden?) But it isn't all that surprising. They always assert themselves when the Democrats become a majority; it's their duty to save the country from the DFH's who are far more dangerous than Dick Cheney could ever be...read on
Matt Stoller has a great post up: Here's Your Bipartisanship, America
As Chris Bowers and Matthew Yglesias among many others have pointed out, what this bipartisanship is really about is undermining the public's ability to participate in policy-making.
Partisanship in other words would mean a progressive country responsive to the public, and bipartisanship means an authoritarian country where the public is cut out...read on
Dem to Repug: Hey lets work together to put a bill together that will override a veto.
Repug to Dem: Go fu#$ yourself commie!
Radically Moderate @ 1:
Dem to Repug: Okay we give up!
Watch. Lucy will steal the ball from Charlie Brown yet again. Wouldn't it be nice if we could teach the Congress about a type of personality called a "concern troll", a creature that runs rampant in journalism (see 'Broder')? Our Congress is like babes in the woods when it comes to these hucksters.
Radically Moderate @ 2:
Dem to base: we're wearing them down, just trust us. All we have to do is take a few more kicks and punches, and give in a little more, and they are ours! Then we pwn them!
and the Republican idea of Bipartisanship is to be obstructionists.
Fuck bipartisanship. Try bitchslapinship instead.
How about trashing both parties and coming up with representation that actually puts the constitution first, uses war as an absolute last resort and outlaws influence peddling for starters ?
face it both parties are tools to the military industrial complex. In short we are being played
No mercy, no quarter for the Neocon, "conservative" traitors.
exit7a @ 8:
This is true.
iraqconcilable @ 7:
Like Real Americans.
hey, would it not be more effective, instead of shipping out all the "illegal immigrants", that we just kick out ALL the gop. we would clean up at least 99 % of the graft and criminals in this country. why should we oust the very people who are honestly working for a living? the gop is just sucking jesus to death and our country.
Change will mean Americans will have to lift their fat-asses off the couch, but that wont happen until Joe Average feels his wallet strangling. When he goes to the frig for that beer and it's empty because he can't afford anything.
America "thinks" it is free, tells the rest of the world about Democracy, while their own is dwindling, their rights eroding. Their children being ground up in the Military Industrial Complex.
The NeoCons have been exposed ... now will Americans have the balls to throw them out?
The Querist @ 13:
That was a rhetorical question, right?
test
The United States has become the aristocracy of wealth Jefferson feared it would become. To the extent our so called government of the people reflects this condition, it is very bi-partisan and unquestionably representative.
sulphurdunn @ 16:
To the extent our so called government of the people reflects this condition, it is very bi-partisan and unquestionably representative.
where have you been the last few decades? you definitely don't understand what " bi-partisan and unquestionably representative" mean. especially these last embarrassing two terms of bushit/cheney, the most criminal of all in the whitehouse.
The list if people who are present at this Unity08 meeting is impressive. But when have any of them put their money (or their reputation) where their mouth is during the Bush Administration?
Some time back this year the NY Times ran an article about "maverick" Chuck Hagel and his hectoring of the Bush war policies.
The author got a bunch of spirited rejoinders reminding him the Chuck Hagel had eventually APPROVED all of Bush's war policies and suggestions that he look into the people who had SAID NO and VOTED NO. The author mentioned this and somewhat sheepishly did. So Chuck talked the talk but didn't walk the walk -- until it was 'WAY too late.
I have been an admirer of Senator Sam Nunn's for YEARS. He was head of the Armed Services Cmte (as Digby said, he was the leader who cut Bill Clinton's knees off during Gays in the Military) who spoke out movingly of the special nature of military service. I believed his sincerity (if I didn't agree with him about Gays in the Military, I figured I was an idealist without much back-knowledge of the military's needs, that maybe I was wrong while morally RIGHT if you get my drift -- his opinion mattered to me) but where the heck has he been during the whole shredding of the Geneva Convention and what it means for OUR troops. We can't even complain if they get tortured. We spat and shat on the Geneva Conventions -- heck on the Convention against TORTURE too.
As for Mayor Bloomberg: his treatment of Democratic (mostly) protestors during the New York convention made me furious.
And NOW all these cases are coming thru the courts and the city is losing again and again, but hey, the 2004 convention is SO YESTERDAY, isn't it?
I have no use for the politics of Bob Barr and Bruce Fein, one was a Clinton Impeachment Manager and the other a mouthpiece for Ed Meese's Department of Justice during the Reagan Administration. But they are standing up NOW and have been for some time to the illegality and unconstitutionality of the Bush Administration.
The people are Unity08 HAD a chance to speak up and make a difference. And they didn't. Was is "non-partisanship" back then?
God, this is really upsetting. All these "moderate" poo-bahs who haven't taken one chance. If any of them had spoken up previously about the mess the Bush Administration was getting us into...but they didn't. And NOW an EQUAL problem is Democratic partisanship.
Hard to believe.
Evave2
The United States has become the aristocracy of wealth Jefferson feared it would become. To the extent our so called government of the people reflects this condition, it is very bi-partisan and unquestionably representative.
To the extent our so called government of the people reflects this condition, it is very bi-partisan and unquestionably representative.
where have you been the last few decades? you definitely don’t understand what ” bi-partisan and unquestionably representative” mean. especially these last embarrassing two terms of bushit/cheney, the most criminal of all in the whitehouse.
Respectfully, it is abundantly clear to me that most of our representatives in both political parties work in a bi-partisan way to represent monied interests at the expense of the larger national interest. Were this not so, things would not be as they are. That is my take on the last few decades of my life. Sorry, if that disturbs you.
Wait a minute. The article isn't about how "both" parties do this or do that.
Its about how the GOP and conservatives ride over the idea of comity.
And a major reason they can is because so many center/left go all "Ralph" on the Democratic party with their own lack of spine, perception,or willingness to engage the opposition.
They seem more eager to oppose their best interests with a boad brush swipe at the process.
Thats how the Village knows the path of least resistance with their cheap political overviews.
Cause the Right marches in lockstep.
OMG, I'll be damned. I hadn't seen this post when I wrote my diatribe on the same subject under the 'Rudy...' thread just above.
I thought I was being original, but I'm happy to see that the situation is obvious.
If you look past the public sound and fury of our two party system, given that both parties are approximately equal in terms of talent, organization and resources, just how then does one explain the fact that when the republicans are in the majority they roll over the democrats and when the democrats are in the majority they just roll over, if they are in fact opposition parties?
seventy-five filibusters since the 2006 elections by the repugs. and harry reid wants to hand them the telecomm immunity on a platter and of all the dem preznitial hopefuls,only chris dodd opposes the bill with actions.
bipartiswha?
[no personal attacks, please. thanks. -- the moderator]
Marcus Aurelius @ 10:
In a nutshell!
Isn't this what obama is promising?
CoIntelPro @ 23:
When it was a rethug majority all you heard was that the dems were going to try to filibust and they were just obstructionists and then the dems wouldn't. Now that it is a dem majority we never even hear a whimper about the filibusters or obstructionism. Why are the dems so quite about this?
sulphurdunn @ 22:
exit7a @ 8:
asked AND answered!
Gerald @ 26:
ezit7a@8 has the best, most direct answer. most people had the impression that the dems were populist, but they were just playing the electorate. progressives were pwned just like the religious right was pwned by the repugs.
the parties are now elites serving elites.
Gerald @ 26:
Oh Wait! I remember why. They are both the same GD MF party. You are being royally screwed!!
[no personal attacks, please. thanks. -- the moderator]
personal attacks? who was I attacking?
dadams @ 12:
I'll CALL on your GOP and raise you ALL INCUMBENTS!
CoIntelPro @ 23:
who did I personally attack? did you read the post?
The Querist @ 13:
NoGWBPolicyLeftinplace @ 33:
your media will blame it all on the democrats.
Speaking of bipartisan, which of the following "torture, rendition, preemptive war, illegal wiretapping" (from header, above) is actually a Clinton invention?
klyde @ 25:
that, and the LIEberman advisors on his staff and his endorsement of LIEberman over Lamont are why obama will never get my vote. along with the healthcare plan that will strand 45,000,000 people and the threat to nuke Iran and the endorsement of schwartzenegger and the homophobe concert tour.
but that's just me.
Bi-partisanship is NOT what is needed.
We need partisanship, with the status-quo-ers on one side; and sane, rational, patriotic, defenders of this Nation and it's institutions and it's rule of law and it's international reputation and it's domestic reputation for treating ALL it's citizens fairly, providing equal opportunity, on the other side.
And we need to do what's necessary to insure that the status-quo-ers lose.
JTM @ 35:
rendition and wiretapping were occurring under clinton. rendition, I believe, came from a presidential directive, possibly an executive order. the wiretapping occurred ostensibly under FISA. there was a tremendous amount of activity before January 1, 2000. allegedly, a very major plot was uncovered and thwarted.
boosh took everything to new and unprecedented depths.
Why don't these esteemed elders meet and talk about honesty in politics and government. It looks to me that they are trying to find a way to defeat the will of the American people again. Michael Bloomberg could spend one billion of his own dollars to be president. Now, we will see the absolute buying of the presidency. What have we come to? This makes me sick to my stomach.
One of the emerging storylines of Campaign '08 is so-called hyperpartisanship, the bitter and increasingly divisive conflict between Democrats and Republicans that is said to be fueling cynicism - and apathy - among voters. In Iowa, Barack Obama proclaims that he will transcend partisan cleavages, while John Edwards vows to fight. Meanwhile, thw Washington Post reports that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will meet next week with prominent figures from both parties to encourage the 2008 candidates to form a "government of national unity." But lost in the cries of hyperpartisanship is the undeniable fact the Republican Party is almost exclusively responsible for it, aided and abetted by an "infotainment" media that has transformed politics into theater.
For the details, see:
"That's Entertainment: Hyperpartisanship and Politics as Theater."
There's bipartisanship, and there's abetting the abysmal.
the Sam Waterston Unity08 crowd can pound sand
my namesake said it best:
"BIPARTISIANSHIP IS DATERAPE."
Remember the nuclear option? That is the neocons answer to being bi-partisan. We must NEVER forget these anti-American hate mongering extremists. If ever there was a party who divided America it is the party of rove, cheney, bush and the other GOPigs. Stay mad and never forget
Money is supposedly what buys elections, those of you that are new around here have no ideal how that money is manifested by the banks to put anyone they want in power, if There is any doubt explain why chimpy is in office, Ask yourself this question. Why is it if we are a democratic republic and 90% of the public is agaisnt the war in Iraq, Why are we still over there. When does the US ever run out of money at 100 trillion 999 tdrillion? When?
The red and the blue will never meet in the middle during my lifetime or my children's lifetime. The Bush Regime and his butt kissing Republican followers have done way too much damage to this country. Their actions are unforgivable. I don't need to elaborate as what destructive,self-serving behaviors of theirs that have caused damage or describe the damage. Just read the postings on Crooks and Liars.
The Repubs are crying for "bipartisanship" now - where were they when Bush came into office in 2004 and basically said up yours to all the Dems - he had political capital to spend and they better get in line with him and just go along for the ride because there was nothing they could do to stop him and the Republican Congress. I want the next Democratic President to be as partisan as possible.
she looks great....what the fuck is wrong with you leftards.
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