Steny Hoyer: "The kind of bipartisanship that would make elections irrelevant"
By John Amato Friday Feb 13, 2009 9:00amI'm no fan of Steny Hoyer, but I agree with his take on the media's obsession with bipartisanship.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Thursday dismissed Republican complaints about not being able to “write exactly half of every bill” as a “deeply elitist idea.”
Speaking at a forum sponsored by Georgetown University and Politico, Hoyer said the problem with fostering bipartisanship is that the understanding of bipartisanship is unrealistic.
“These days the conventional wisdom is that bipartisanship is not dead, but on life support. The debate now isn't what happened, but who killed it,” he said.
“But bipartisanship does not mean going out for drinks after the final gavel comes down.”
Hoyer then said that if Republicans could write half of every bill that would be "the kind of bipartisanship that would make elections irrelevant."
"It's a deeply elitist view if understood in that context," he added. "We're in the majority, so we have the power and responsibility to foster bipartisanship. But it takes two to tango."
The media has completely failed to hold Republicans responsible for their inabilty to work with the Obama administration. Never have their motives been questioned. When all the HOUSE/Limbaugh Republicans voted against the stimulus bill the media never looked at what they were doing politically. It was always labeled as Obama's fault. I remember when Republicans said that elections have consequences, but when it applies to them of course it's a non-starter.
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Get rid of both major parties and we will be rid of this silly talk of bipartisanship.
There is only one party, the Money/Power Party with two factions.
This is just a twisted ballet of bullshit. This is all staged and
planned like Pro Wrestling match. You have to give the Repubs credit for
standing together...something Dems could NEVER do.
Never!
that's why they stick together. and they're scared of limbaugh. now that's standing up
The Republicrats of yore.
Now better known as the RepubliKLEPTOcrats
PHUCK BOTH OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!
who's party? your party?
any time the two parties can agree on something we get screwed the most.
"Damn the economy. Full speed ahead to the 2010 elections!"
I can't stand him either.
He's Nanny "impeachment is off the table" Pelosi's buttboy and I will never forget his smarmy BS response as to why he was voting for a $4,400 dollar salary increase as the nation began to slide into the recession.
But, he's correct and I have to agree with him.
"The media has completely failed to hold Republicans responsible for their inability to work with the Obama administration."
Actually, "inability" should be replaced with "refusal", as they are refusing to work in good faith with President Obama and the Democrats.
Beautifully stated . . .
I am hoping against all hope, eventually we can force MSM to broadcast real news instead of being strictly a Republican propaganda machine!
said it better myself!
The MSM (with some notable exceptions) is doing their best to do the bidding of their corporate masters by helping to promote and defend a dysfunctional Neocon party with no redemptive ideas to lift up America. These propagandists are willing accomplices in America's problem, not the solution. Somehow, they have let their supersized egos and bloated compensation delude themselves into thinking that they are very relevant and important. What utter bullshit. The trash these self-important assclowns babble on about is obscene and insulting garbage that I have no to time to hear and that anyone who cares about the future of our country should tune out immediately.
These shallow dupes need to start thinking what sort of legacy their sordid industry will leave to America---so far, they are little more than a rebranded form of Pravda. At least they are consistent---these schmucks hang out and support historical failures and obsolete philosophies. Nice job on squandering the hard work that people like Edward Murrow worked a lifetime to build.
Hear, Hear!
like amato says, "HOUSE/Limbaugh Republicans "
talk radio has made the difference the last 20 yrs
the corp media's republican ownership relies on the talk radio monopoly with 1000 stations blasting GOP talking points without contest 24/7/365- it gives the GOP a bandwagon to ride and lays out a smorgasbord of prechewed and laundered talking points and one liners for their lazy celebrity talking heads and sycophant politicians to pick from.
Let them eat dirt.
...is not "we write 50% of every bill". It's "we write 100% of every bill". Its long past time they learned that elections have consequences.
"The media" is what is failing us most, not the representation or ideology of the two parties.
the media is failing us, but that is nothing compared to the neoliberal ideology were are yoked to
i think you might be missing the point...
Blue is correct... If the mass media is set up to be a Fourth Estate to keep the masses informed, then the media has failed.
the average citizen (or Joe Sixpack) has no clue what the government/politicians/corporate masters are doing to him. We are all subject to the whims of whatever ideology and/or corporate strategy happens to be at the wheel.
Only the internet and sites like this one can be our salvation.
no, no, no
of course the media failed. but, to say that the media has failed us "the most" well, i just can't accept that.
the american populace has been informed about a lot of things (the awful healthcare, the supply-side economy, the neoliberal foreign policy, the failed drug war, etc., etc., etc). this generally happens despite the media, but that is neither here nor there. Yet, when we vote for ‘change’ [ie, the 2006 election where we thought the dem congress would confront bush] we rarely ever get the change we thought we'd voted for. In other words: even if we were to be PERFECTLY informed, our political class has proven to be intransigent, and continues to govern in a manner that benefits the rich and the corporations.
Had we been PERFECTLY informed, we might've elected Kucinich and a host of 3rd party and/or progressive congressmen and senators and we might have actually gotten some real change.
is the problem, not bipartisanship. Blindly following a party's leadership because they belong to the same party, rather than actually do the job of representing the electorate that voted them in. People should be elected based on their competence, and whether they will represent well, not what stupid political party they belong to. Partisanship makes bullshit legislation enacted because "it's not perfect, but we all agree" rather than forcing the idiots to make it better.
If a bill was introduced slashing funding from all public schools in Michigan would all members of the same party vote for it (or most anyway) even though it hurts the people that elected them?
I seem to recall when Bush was in office and the Republicans dominated the House and senate, their approach to Democrats was "Sit down and shut up!"
But now the shoe is on the other foot, and the Republicans are out of power, they feel that not only should Democrats reach out to Republicans, but the Democrats should again.....'Sit down and shut up'...
Will Democrats fall to their knees....again?
Or will they put the Republicans in their place?
All it takes is one GOP Senator to vote with the Democratic Majority. One GOPer gets his bridge to nowhere and any piece of legislation can pass. I don't see how it is in anybodies interest to act in a bipartisan manner. We are talking about politics and power; not about the get-along gang.
"But it takes two to tango."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x4UOsLC0OE
the media can only in my opinion see the glass NOT full. they want so very much to create even more drama than there is. they're negative regarding Geithner and the Gregg nomination. 8 yrs. of creating this financial crisis now Geithner is suppose to have answers/solutions in a couple weeks. the market and the critics are unreasonable. how i see it, NO matter what they do it's wrong. as far as judd gregg it's his fault NOT Obama. gregg thought he wanted the position. it may be a conscious decision but i believe it was political. the (R) don't want bipartisanship as defined by Obama. they want it on their terms when they want ....how they want it. i also did NOT hear much about the positive statements gregg said about Obama......although those comments were in the paper(s).
That's pretty much exactly what I've been thinking when I hear the Republican leadership whine about the bipartisanship Obama "promised". What would be the point of elections?
The bedwetting cry babies forget how they completely closed the Dem's out for years when they were in the majority. I say screw every last one of the Reslug Assholes now.
Again it's sooooo obvious that there was never a majority of Dem's in the main stream media. It's always been reslug liars.
You totally nail it with this:
The media has completely failed to hold Republicans responsible for their inabilty to work with the Obama administration.
The corporate media is really a criminal enterprise akin to the mafia.
many beginning Poli-Sci courses teach Puzo's "Godfather" as a case study in p0litical organization strtegy and technique...
The media are just wholly owned subsidiaries.
Let's see, not a single Republican voted for the bill. Now I don't know how much Democrats gave to Republicans on the bill when they were debating it, but I really now sure as hell hope that they didn't give an inch. If they did, better be the last time.
For at least the past eight years it's been complaining about how can the media overlook the republicans bad actions and misdeeds(too many to list). Now it's more of the same. Can we agree that the media being referred to isn't interested in fair, accurate, representation of facts? If so, when can we stop complaining about said media, even stop paying attention to them altogether. These media types so scrutinized clearly subscribe to the Morrisey philosophy, that being, "The more you despise me the closer I get."
Steny (What the fuck kind of name is THAT anyway? I can't get over it, sorry.) is against bipartisanship only because John Boner won't give him equal time on the tanning bed. Steny only gets 15 minutes to every hour for Boner, and it shows.
the two (complementary) wings of the Party of Property, which is normally tacit and unspoken, explicit.
The two "wings" are virtually indistinguishable in their aims and goals: more domestic surveillance, more authoritarianism, more corporatism, more militarism, more taxes; but fewer services for the taxes, fewer liberties, reduced 'entitlements.' hey only differ, to the extent that they do, in the means they apply to achieve those ends: Pukes bully, Dims bribe...
GO FUCKKK YOURSELVES, REPUBLISCUM!!!!
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