Bipartisanship Is a Silly Beltway Obsession

Last week, President Barack Obama spoke at town-hall meetings in cities hit hard by the recession. With only one exception -- a woman who thought Mr. Obama needed to have a beer with Sean Hannity -- the questions the president received in these places were all concerned with bread-and-butter economic issues: mortgage problems, funding for education, and the difficulties of low-wage work.

Over the weekend, after Congress had approved a massive economic stimulus package, it was the news media's turn to ask the questions. Here, a different concern permeated the discussion: The nation's desperate need for bipartisanship, and the president's failure to usher in a new era of brotherly love between Republicans and Democrats.

It is always a disappointment to turn from forthright consideration of some subject -- whether from the left or the right, a poet or a plumber -- to the Beltway version, in which the only aspects of the issue that matter are the effects it will have on the fortunes of the two parties and the various men in power. Today, though, with the nation facing the deepest economic crisis in decades, there is something particularly perverse about the Washington way.

We are watching industries crumble, Wall Street firms disappear, unemployment spike, and unprecedented government intervention. And our designated opinion leaders want to know: Is Obama up this week? Is he down? And is his leadership style more like Bill Clinton's, or Abraham Lincoln's?

Above all else stands the burning question of bipartisanship. Whatever else the politicians might say they're about, our news analysts know that this is the true object of the nation's desire, the topic to which those slippery presidential spokesmen need always to be dragged back.

When last week's passage of the gigantic stimulus package is judged in this light, only one verdict is possible: Obama failed to deliver. He talked big about reaching out to Republicans, and yet he received only three votes from them in the Senate, and none in the House. Yes, the bill passed, but what a disaster!

Let's admit the obvious. Promises to get beyond partisanship are the most perfunctory sort of campaign rhetoric, almost as empty as the partisanship itself.

For the Beltway commentariat, however, transcending partisanship is the most meaningful of issues, more important, one senses, than the economic problems that trouble those people at town-hall meetings. "Nothing was more central to [Obama's] victory last fall than his claim that he could break the partisan gridlock in Washington," wrote the Washington Post's David Broder a few weeks ago, in an altogether typical expression of media perceptions.

The way I remember it, the No. 1 issue in the election was the collapsing economy, followed at some distance by the Iraq war. On both of these questions, Mr. Obama prevailed because he was the candidate who promised most convincingly to reverse Republican policies -- not because he planned to meet the GOP halfway across the charred ruins of American prosperity.

The reason the Washington media think bipartisanship is the top issue, even when economic disaster stomps Americans like Godzilla, is because of the way it reflects their own professional standards. They are themselves technically impartial, and so it's only natural for them to wish for a hazy millennium in which everyone else in Washington is impartial, too.

It is supposed to be high-minded stuff, this longing for a bipartisan golden age. But in some ways it is the most cynical stance possible. It takes no idea seriously, since everything is up for compromise. The role of the political parties is merely to cancel each other out, so that only the glorious centrists remain, triangulating majestically between obnoxious extremes.

What's more, bipartisanship's boosters can't even discern friend from foe. The Republican caucus in the House of Representatives, which seems to be growing even more conservative as its numbers shrink, has clearly resumed the strategies of the early Gingrich era -- obstruction, bomb-throwing and more obstruction. But to the mainstream media, the angry Republican pols seem to mainly discredit Mr. Obama, who failed to win over the GOP. Which will, of course, encourage the bitter-enders to obstruct even more.

Never has Beltway orthodoxy looked as clueless and futile as it does today. Confronted with the greatest failure of economic ideas in decades, it demands that the president make common cause with people for whom those failed ideas are still sacred. To think we can solve our problems in this way is like hoping to chart a route to the moon by water.

Thomas Frank's column, The Tilting Yard, appears every Wednesday at OpinionJournal.com

Also in Opinion Journal:

Bill Bradley: Five Ways to Restore Financial Trust

John Fund: Arlen's Fatal Stimulus

Comments

[libdude]

Great analysis, Mr. Frank, as usual. But I really think that the actions and rhetoric of the right are now much more than obstructionist. From Rush Limbaugh's hoping aloud for Obama's failure, to a virtual shut-out of Republican support in any meaningful way for the President's recovery plan, the obstructionism of the right has morphed into naked sabotage. I honestly don't think that is an overstatement. They all want Obama to fail. They don't have any other way of looking at it. Good God, what if Obama and the Democrats were to get this country going again? Where would that leave conservatives? They're on the outs as it is, and if Obama succeeds, they'll be in the wilderness for much longer than most of them can bear. It seems that the last thing on the minds of Republicans is bipartisanship, at least as a condition that they themselves would initiate. It's obvious to me that the right is more than willing to hang Obama out to dry in its self-serving quest to regain control in Washington.

[wonketteRAWKS]

Bipartisanship is just a word used in campaigns! Welcome to reality!

[John Groves]

Great points as always, Thomas. You did (probably due to space limitation) leave out what to me is the most important observation about the media's desire for bi-partisanship: they only harp on it when democrats are in power. Only a democrat, it seems, can be a failure at bi-partisanship.

When republicans are in power, they natter incessantly about democratic filibusters. When democrats are in power, it's the much more benign 60 votes that it takes to get anything done in the senate.

[CloseToTheEdge]

I didn't vote for the democratic ticket and contribute to Obama in order to have him get along with the republicans. I voted for him to defeat them. And to paraphrase someone from Daily Kos, to set fire to their dead bodies, feed their ashes to goats, feed the goats to sharks, load the sharks on rockets and fire them into the sun.

[allonfla]

Obama did defeat the Republicans and in the eyes of normal Americans - you did mention DKOS- Obama is doing just fine and they like that he has made efforts to reach out to Republicans. You political don't get it - Obama knows these guys are obstructionists, he knows that Republicans won't play BUT he knows that every time they smack him down normal voters will look at him as the only adult in the room.

[chronic]

Exactly!!

[returnofthejedi]

Giving the republicans everything they want even though they are out of touch with most Americans under 65 is not my idea of bi-partisanship. When the republicans were the majority they could care less about the opinions or suggestions of the minority. Why do they feel they deserve any better? You should treat people like you would like to be treated because nobody knows what tommorow may bring. The republicans thought they could gerrymander their way to a permanent majority. When that didn't happen they decided be obstructionist, whether or not the things they are obstructing are good for Americans.

[PlaceboStudman]

The problem with using any of these big scary words is defining them. Define Bipartisanship. Most people seem to believe that Bipartisanship is working across the aisle to come to a consensus that both sides can agree on.

I call that a dictatorship by committee, personally

[OpalSky42]

Don't the people of the oblivious Beltway media get emails, phone calls, faxes or letters? I'm sure lots of people have been trying to wake them up to reality but to no avail. Open your eyes, people. We did not vote to have the same party that ruined our economy and basically skrewed everyone but the top 5% of the richest of the rich back in power. It's time to let them know (a) their party LOST, (b) their ideology failed, (c) it's time to get back to actually being journalists and do your blessed jobs! I am increasingly irked at the blithering fools.

[MNLadybug]

Such an excellent idea. I second it! There need to be more competing narratives.

[ellwood]

I think both the "mainstream" media and the far right wing have proven far too susceptible to the "easy narrative". We saw this over and over again during the last campaign. It's much less work than gathering data and thinking hard about what that data means. The easy narrative can be then sold to constituents / viewers, who are absolved of doing any real thinking about hard problems too. A self-perpetuating cycle, until enough people see through the BS. The result of which leads to priceless "maybe we don't really know what's going on" Joe Scarborough moments among some, while others just dig in their heels further. The latest "it's 1993 all over again" narrative is a good one.. I'm looking forward to more crushing GOP defeats in 2010 as a result.

[reedmaker]

I want Obama to succeed, but the bipartisanship obsession is as much has as it is anyone else's in DC. HE more than anyone else, HAS GOT TO LET IT GO.

[peterg76]

From the media's point of view, Democrats and Republicans should put aside their differences (or at least Democrats should put theirs aside), and work against their common enemy: citizens.

[amoraldemocrat]

Mr. Frank, I'm a huge admirer of your "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and have enjoyed watching you in the media; your intelligent analysis of politics and your wit are unique. My fantasy is that you will tackle the WPA--either by compiling an oral history or by providing the narration to a documentary: something that will counter the moronic, ignorant talking points the right wing keeps repeating in their attempt to denigrate the program.

[Wickywoo]

The goal now needs to be to punish Republicans and criminal Democrats for their crimes. We need to introduce accountibility into our government. Flogging on the mall would be a good start

1- Ban the stock market, companies can still sell shares privately, no more gambling
2- Ban lobbying, period.
3- Take away the corporation's right as a person, and make sure that they are running scared all the time. Ban them from leaving our shores, and hold them and all companies attached to the same conglomerate legally accountable for their actions everywhere. If the Guatemala spinoff starts violating human rights, the US CEO goes to jail as well.

Punishment and fear is what conservatives understand. Liberals need to go in like Republicans do, with steel toed golf spikes on, kicking the nuts before anything else

[jchurch]

Spot on analysis.

[gdogs]

It's quite obvious the nation didn't vote for bipartisanship this past November. If they had, McCain would president right now, as he was the only candidate that had a record of being bipartisan. Campaign talk is cheap, unfortunately the American public just spent $800B on it, and barely even noticed.

[Heartlight3]

Senator McCain abdicated his bipartisan position during the campaign. There was nothing during that time, other than his insistence that he was a "maverick", that indicated any bipartisanship on his part. Just because he loudly proclaims that he was once bipartisan, doesn't mean that he actually still is. It was certainly obvious to me that he had no interest in bipartisanship during the campaign. Did you listen to him? Did you watch him? He chose Sarah Palin as a running mate!

[gdogs]

"record of being bipartisan"... meaning he has actually been bipartisan in the past. More to the point, he actually has a record (of something besides "present" votes). And like I said, campaign talk is cheap, that goes for both sides. Look, I don't disagree with the president on many issues, but this stimulus package is crap. It isn't going to help the average American anytime soon, and it isn't going to miraculously turn around the economy. It is however going to increase inflation, and put a tremendous debt burden on our future generations.