The 1980s burnouts that compose the "Unity '08" group have complained that someone needs to step up on a non-partisan or bipartisan ticket to end the "partisan bickering" in Washington. I have thought about this "partisan bickering" theme for a few days, and I have come to this conclusion:
The next prominent politician who says that their #1 priority is to end "partisan bickering" in Washington deserves a swift blow to the nuts with a sledgehammer.
A few observations:
- There is no "bipartisan" way to stop the "bickering" in Washington. The current Republican Party has been the single most divisive, hateful, polarizing, and uncompromising political entity that has existed in American politics since the end of the Civil War. On every issue, they whine, bitch, moan, and threaten their opponents until they get their way. Take the FISA issue for example. First, Republicans argued that the law needs to be updated. This in itself is a dubious position (I think the current law is pretty damn solid, considering how you don't even need to get a warrant authorized until a few days after the wiretap from a court that almost NEVER rejects warrant requests). But, this was not enough for the GOP. Now, they demand that before the law can be updated, telecommunications companies that broke the previous law need to be granted retroactive immunity. As Chris Dodd says, if Bush claims that the law is needed to save American lives, then his partisanship is putting telecom companies ahead of American lives. On every single issue, be it tax cuts, the Patriot Act, FISA, the idiotic Social Security privatization scheme, and the Iraq War, Bush and the Republicans have insisted on getting their way. Apparently, their definition of "compromise" is to simply bitch and moan until the Democrats fold.
I'm not going to discuss implementation here, but the single most effective way to end "partisan bickering" in Washington would be to prevent any member of the current Republican Party leadership from ever serving in the federal government. Unity '08 needs to stop implying that Democrats are responsible for this. On every issue, we've tried to compromise, and all it's done is encourage the Republicans to bitch and moan even more. I don't want to sound like I'm blowing this out of proportion, but this idea that there is a pox on both houses is kind of like blaming African-Americans for the whole KKK lynching problem - it's kind of retarded.
- In retrospect, maybe some MORE partisan bickering would've been useful in the past (and for the rest of the Bush presidency). Seeing as how the GOP will never compromise, perhaps the Democrats should've raised more hell. Maybe with some "partisan bickering," we wouldn't have had:
-The Iraq War
-The Patriot Act
-The pathetic excuse for an energy and climate policy we have in this country
-Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court
-Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General
-Torture as a tool of U.S. foreign policy
Getting along is nice and all, but honestly, there have to be limits. Why the hell do you have to get along with someone who is completely retarded and hell bent on destroying everything this country was built on? On every single issue, the Republicans have been wrong. Climate change. The Iraq War. Social Security. Our tax structure. Civil Rights. Lobbying reform. Dead fucking wrong on every single issue. This isn't the Republican Party of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower anymore. Did we try to compromise with the Japanese after they bombed Pearl Harbor? No. We kicked the fucking shit out of them. With all the damage the current Republicans have done to the country, asking a Democrat to name a Republican as his running mate is kind of like asking the US in 1945 to let Japan have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Happy New Year everyone! (FYI, I am supporting Obama for the Presidential Election)