Rum, Romanism and Rebellion

A few weeks back, when some in the media were alleging that Barack Obama’s lack of Republican votes for his plan were evidence that he was going back on his promise to be “bipartisan,” I changed my Facebook status to “thinks that bipartisanship for the sake of bipartisanship is overrated.” This prompted a response from a friend in Boston who said, “especially when your party is in control, right?”

I think that my friend didn’t understand that the comment was directed at senators in my own party who were voting against Obama’s proposals out of political calculus more than anything else, and then sancimoniously speaking as though it was some sort of high minded “bipartisanship.”

The thing that irks me about the media’s use of the term “bipartisan” is that in some ways it is anti-democratic. If bills should always be passed by pluralities in both parties, what is the use in having elections? I can see this going on in a closely divided congress, but why demand it when there is a clear majority?

My problem biggest with the term is that it seems to be a cover for Republican leaders to complain that they aren’t getting all that they want. Well, win an election and you’ll get more of what you want. I heard a quote from Mike Enzi this morning complaining about Democratic leaders thinking that they can write the bills just because they won. Well, duh.

Anyway, in his press conference last night, Obama addressed demands from the Republican members that his proposals be more “bipartisan.”

I do think that, to my Republican friends, I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine. I can’t sort of define bipartisanship as simply being willing to accept certain theories of theirs that we tried for eight years and didn’t work and the American people voted to change. But there are a whole host of areas where we can work together.

And I’ve said this to people like Mitch McConnell. I said, look, on health care reform, you may not agree with me that we should have a public plan — that may be philosophically just too much for you to swallow. On the other hand, there are some areas, like reducing the cost of medical malpractice insurance where you do agree with me. If I’m taking some of your ideas — and giving you credit for good ideas — the fact that you didn’t get a hundred percent can’t be a reason every single time to oppose my position. And if that is how bipartisanship is defined — a situation in which, basically, wherever there are philosophical differences I have to simply go along with ideas that have been rejected by the American people in a historic election, we’re probably not going to make progress.

If, on the other hand, the definition is that we’re open to each other’s ideas, there are going to be some differences, the majority will be probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard-core differences that we can’t resolve, but there’s a whole host of other areas where we can work together, then I think we can make progress.