Open Thread for Night Owls, Early Birds & Expats

You will no doubt recall that a couple of weeks ago, President Barack Obama tried to build some post-partisan bridges by meeting with a few conservative media honchos at the home of George Will. He later met with a few media moderates and liberals, and I recommended that he also meet with some people a bit left of left-of-center.

Such folks never got to sit down for a nosh with the President and, of course, they definitely are not getting a forum in the megamedia. As d-day has noted in "Misinformation Brigade," one thing that hasn't changed in our new era is that the Sunday talk shows are still brimful of conservatives.

So what did Will's right-wing dinner guests have to say this weekend about the economic stimulus plan? According to Think Progress:

Charles Krauthammer: "Look, this is one of the worst bills in galactic history. ... FDR left behind the Hoover dam and Eisenhower left behind the interstate highway system. We will leave behind, after spending $1 trillion, a dog run in East Potomac Park." [Fox News, 1/24/09] David Brooks: "It is an unholy marriage that manages to combine the worst of each approach — rushed short-term planning with expensive long-term fiscal impact." [New York Times, 1/23/09] Bill Kristol: "The stimulus has so much bad stuff in it. ... They let the House Democrats get out of control in sort of writing a pork-laden bill. Politically, I think the Republicans have more room too argue for changes and ultimately vote against it." [Fox News Sunday, 1/25/09]

d-day goes on:

Clearly the bipartisan fetishists in the media, as well as those who are trying to re-learn Econ 101 overnight, are signaling that only the midpoint of the pre-compromised baseline bill and Republican "destroy all taxes" philosophy would be the most wise and just. Stephanopoulos today couldn't get over the fact that Nancy Pelosi wouldn't accept GOP ideas, with Pelosi insisting that those ideas have to actually make sense ... STEPHANOPOULOS: The president’s made it pretty clear that he wants this to be a real bipartisan effort, yet House Republicans have said they’ve been shut out of this process. There were no Republican votes in the Appropriations Committee, no Republican votes in the Ways and Means Committee. Is this the bipartisan effort President Obama has called for? PELOSI: Well, because the Republicans don’t vote for it doesn’t mean they didn’t have an opportunity to. We -- the Republicans asked for a couple of things, one, that related to process that you described, that there would be an open process where they could present their amendments. They didn’t vote for the final bill, but we voted for some of their amendments in the committees that had the markups the day before yesterday and this week. ... Meanwhile, the media is enabling the right wing by running with any unsubstantiated press release to undermine the bill, and next week I'd expect this to run at a fever pitch. We don't have a lot of history of being able to count on Democrats to hold the line, so their performance on this bill will be a key indicator on what to expect. Will the attitude be "I won" or "What can I get you?"

Kristol's comment that "the Republicans have more room too argue for changes and ultimately vote against it" reminds me of the behavior of a Rocky Mountain area city council a few years back. For decades, the councilmembers in the majority ranged from moderately to sharply right wing. They rarely consulted with their minority liberal colleagues when passing laws. Then, in the early 1970s, the arrival of the 18-year-old vote changed the council's tilt, creating a moderately left-of-center majority with an environmental orientation. The leadership of the new majority wanted to run things differently.

In an effort to "build consensus," the liberals sought to ensure broad support on the council by supporting rightist amendments that diluted far-sighted, much-needed new laws. Then, in almost every instance, when the final ordinance or program was ultimately voted on, the right-wing minority said no anyway. Thus did the liberals weaken their own legislation and programs - for absolutely no good purpose. If this had happened once or a few times, it would have been understandable. But the process went on for years despite those in the community who repeatedly pointed out how this relentless compromising was never reciprocated.

Will Republicans ever learn that bipartisanship is a two-way street? And if they don't, how long will it take for Democrats to stop pretending that anything is to be gained from one-sided compromises?

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