I'd like to ask all of the people who thought trying to reach out to Republicans in a bipartisan manner would be a good idea -- Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama in particular -- how'd that work out for you?
Could the effort at bipartisanship over the last two years have been a bigger disaster? The Democrats allowed the Republicans to make their case for two straight years while Democrats laid down their arms. And it turns out the voters didn't know why they should vote for the Democrats. Surprise, surprise.
The Republicans on the other hand went with complete and utter partisanship -- and it worked! If the Obama White House trusts one more idiot in Washington who says they should try reaching consensus with the Republicans, then they deserve the ass kicking they'll get next time around, too.
We had a Republican strategist on our show tonight and with incredibly honesty he admitted that the idea of "bipartisanship" is something that only benefits Republicans because they never really engage in it and they get the Democrats to do what they want (you can watch it here at the 6:39-7:48 mark). How stupid do you have to be to keep falling into that trap?
I guess as stupid as Mark Penn, who of course predictably calls for Obama to do just that -- again -- for the next two years. But Penn isn't stupid (the Democrats aren't stupid either, they're just supposed to be the patsies that lose to the Republicans in this big corporate game that's being played on us). Penn loves the corporatist, pro-Wall Street, Republican policies and is just using the results of this election to push for them as he did when he was running Hillary Clinton's campaign. How did that work out for him? Oh yeah.
Rush Limbaugh pushed the Republicans to fight and not give an inch to the Democrats. That strategy unfortunately worked. However much you might love the idea of bipartisanship, it has proven to be a terrible political strategy. Exactly as we said in the beginning of the Obama administration, the Republicans had no desire to work with the president on anything. We said the only thing they would want to do is to tear him down. We were right.
That's the Washington reality. If President Obama doesn't adjust to that fact and start fighting back, the next two years are going to be brutal.
Follow Cenk Uygur on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheYoungTurks
"Does the so-called "First" Family really need their sheets changed every week?" asked McConnell at aN Oval Office press gaggle.
Flicking his cigarette ash on the President's new Oval Office carpet, Boehner reiterated "American taxpayers need to know that their hard-earned money is not going down the drain to pay for extra SoftScrub and Sani-Flush for all those bathrooms in the White House. We're drawing a line in the dust on this issue," he said.
The President also apologized to the Republicans for his recent "uppity" behavior.
Boehner responded by urging the President to order some Pentagon-grade ash trays for their Oval Office.
www.praajek.com
Let's get moving!
Now he probably should've tackled Financial Reform, Energy Reform, and Stimulus first and foremost, but no one anticipated just how tough Healthcare Reform was gonna be. It's the economy, and the government can only do so much. Financial Reform is key and even then it'll take years to get our economy back on it's feet. Until derivatives trading is outlawed or regulated to be less profitable then investment in manufacturing. Until our trade deficit with China is corrected nothing will matter in fixing the economy. It's all band aids on a gun shot wound.
Let's Hope, Pray and See !
but it will never happen, Democrats are just as corporatist as GOP.
A potential ally?
You'll see more clearly
SIS-BOOM-BAAA!
All politicians say they have to reach across the aisle. Heck, Boehner said as much last night. No one is going to be for absolute partisanship. Saying it is one thing, but really working together is something else. Admittedly, the GOP in Congress did not play well with others, but let's not pretend that Obama and the Dems wanted to hear much of anything the GOP was saying.
Because the Republicans were following the Limbaugh strategy: "We want Barack Obama to fail". And what better way to accomplish that than to fake just enough interest in bipartisanship to fool people like you and the Democrats into believing they were sincere, causing legislation to be so watered down that it would piss off not only the Republican base, who would have been pissed anyway, but also the Democratic base who had been promised the kind of change that never materialized.
Republicans played Obama, the Democrats and the voters like a fiddle (the Democrats perhaps willingly allowing themselves to be played) and the entire country suffers as a result. And now the charade shall continue, according to Harry Reid and Barack Obama, as the Washington Generals attempt to work with the Harlem Globetrotters one more time and expect a different outcome.
Bi-partisanship can only work when both sides actually care about achieving a result that benefits the people of this country. The only result the Republicans care about is causing the Democrats to fail, and delivering for the wealthy and the corporations.
Even a discredited message like the Repubs' will beat no message at all if the BS is offered up often enough. We all know the the Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey is dying for want of any message. What is our vision for this country? What does US citizenship mean, and how can citizens use their government and other joint action to make this country what we say we want? Other commentators to this post nailed it, too. What we're offered now is all too often (not always, though) a corporatist charade.
Well, it's up to the progressive online community to take the lead in creating a message to the public about who this country is, who we are, and why Demo candidates deserve their vote, in season and out. It should make change real. There should be room for less than complete assent to it (remember Reagan's 70% rule), but those who reject more than that - or fight the very idea - should not get progressive support.
And, with 2012 in mind, the DNC and the WHite House need to know that without a convincing message and narrative to tell voters, they can get all their money and all their volunteers from the same place they get their politics - the corporatist "center."