There's been much talk lately in the media and thusly around these parts about "partisanship."
The media and the Right have been calling for an end to partisanship, calling for a move to the center and no ideological governings.
I think that the Right has an excellent point. Partisanship is needless and should be cast aside as we work to rebuild America to the glory it new before the Right came in and fucked everything up.
We have seen the terrors and ills partisanship can bring:
"I remember one incident very clearly -- I think it was 2001," says Winslow Wheeler, who served for twenty-two years as a Republican staffer in the Senate. "I was working for [New Mexico Republican] Pete Domenici at the time. We were in a Budget Committee hearing and the Democrats were debating what the final result would be. And my boss gets up and he says, 'Why are you saying this? You're not even going to be in the room when the decisions are made.' Just said it right out in the open."
There's no room in Congress for actions like that, for such blatant disregard for Democracy.
Sensenbrenner kept trying to gavel the hearing to a close, but Democrats again pointed to the rules, which said they had a certain amount of time to examine their witnesses. When they refused to stop the proceedings, the chairman did something unprecedented: He simply picked up his gavel and walked out.
"He was like a kid at the playground," the staffer says. And just in case anyone missed the point, Sensenbrenner shut off the lights and cut the microphones on his way out of the room.
Partisanship breeds childish behaviors, unbecoming of elected officials.
Unacceptable.
For similarly petulant moves by a committee chair, one need look no further than the Ways and Means Committee, where Rep. Bill Thomas -- a pugnacious Californian with an enviable ego who was caught having an affair with a pharmaceutical lobbyist -- enjoys a reputation rivaling that of the rotund Sensenbrenner. The lowlight of his reign took place just before midnight on July 17th, 2003, when Thomas dumped a "substitute" pension bill on Democrats -- one that they had never read -- and informed them they would be voting on it the next morning. Infuriated, Democrats stalled by demanding that the bill be read out line by line while they recessed to a side room to confer. But Thomas wanted to move forward -- so he called the Capitol police to evict the Democrats.
I think you get the picture.
No one knows the dangers of partisanship more than Republicans, for they basked in these dangers for years, stewing in the oils of pettiness and petulance, chuckling and giggling while they thought of 1001 ways to torture the Democratic minority.
Do we really want more of that? More partisanship, more pettiness, more rude and outlandish behavior designed to embarrass and humiliate for no good reason?
I agree with the Right.
Not today's Right, which calls for unity when they've just had their asses handed to them.
I agree with the Right of the 109th Congress, which forced Democrats to hunt around Capitol Hill to find meetings, which forced them into dank basements for their offices, which routinely mocked and belittled them.
I agree with that Right.
Partisanship is fun.
And paybacks, as noted, are a bitch.