What bipartisanship is mainly about is both parties working together to pass laws the public doesn’t want in a way that avoids any democratic accountability.

In a nutshell. I can think of many pieces of bipartisan legislation that hurt the country, like NAFTA, the recent “JOBS” act (a giveaway to the financial industry), the 1996 Telecommunications act, Scalia’s confirmation (98-0!), the repeal of Glass-Stegall, the DOMA act, etc., etc..

Add on if you can think of any.

Ditto

Barack Obama’s insistence on “reaching out” to Republicans like Charles (“Death Panels”) Grassley is the number-one reason why he has all but whiffed on an entire presidential term. That’s the bad news. The even worse news is that there isn’t a shred of evidence that Obama has learned anything from his experience.

The Iraq Resolution, the Patriot Act, and the FISA amendments; and this administration’s willingness to consolidate the worst constitutional abuses of the Bush 43 administration as part of its own foreign and national-security policy.

DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*

One of the best diaries EVAH.

Thanks to the state’s “sore loser law” there is no way Lugar can win the election.

Frikkin’ Connecticut.

Yep and so far they have all worked so well in killing of Main Streets around the world;) Amazing

Those calling for bipartisan consensus to make the “tough decisions” are in reality calling for elected officials to defy the will of the electorate while protecting themselves from being held responsible for their actions.

Lotta money quotes in this, DDay, but this stands out for me.

I never ever trusted Obama’s so-called “bi-partisan outreach.” It was bogus from the beginning, and it remains bogus to this day.

Clearly the populace – on either side – doesn’t like it either. The whole “bipartisan” schtick is all about schticking it to the 99%, whilst permitting the 1% to plunder & pillage.

Screw that.

It is the same democratic accountability destroying principle that is behind the calls for “unity governments” in Europe to force through unpopular austerity packages. By getting all the major parties to do the opposite of what voters want, the idea is that the voters will have no one else to turn to.

nail

on

head

this is what I call “the unification of the universe” theory, they are creating a global robber baron economy such that no one country can look to another and say “see?…there is a better system then the wealth class stealing from the labor class”

If it helps the rich then both parties will work together and defy popular opinion if necessary to do it I think Jon is spot on except for this exception to the rule.

To make matters worse there is no evidence he ever supported what the majority wanted NAFTA, ending the wars, Torture, Creating jobs all come to mind.
I don’t think the end of Bipartisanship will stop Obama from surrendering to the GOP if anything he might surrender even quicker.

that no one country can look to another and say “see?…there is a better system then the wealth class stealing from the labor class

”

Argentina had defaulted on its debt, its GDP had declined by nearly 20% in four years, unemployment reached 25%, and the peso had depreciated 70% after being devalued and floated.[2]
Expansionary policies and commodity exports triggered a rebound in GDP from 2003 onwards. This trend has been largely maintained, creating over five million jobs and encouraging domestic consumption and fixed investment. A number of important firms privatized during the 1990s were renationalized beginning in 2003. These include the Postal service, AySA (the water utility serving Buenos Aires), Pension funds (transferred to ANSES), Aerolíneas Argentinas, and the energy firm YPF.[32]
The socio-economic situation has been steadily improving and the economy grew around 9% annually for five consecutive years between 2003 and 2007, and 7% in 2008. Argentine debt restructuring offers in 2005 and 2010 resumed payments on the majority of its almost $100 billion in defaulted bonds from 2001.[33] The global recession of 2007–10 affected the economy in 2009, with growth slowing to 0.8%.[2] High economic growth resumed, and GDP expanded by around 9% in both 2010 and 2011.[2] The Argentine government bond market is based on GDP-linked bonds, and investors, both foreign and domestic, netted record yields as a result.[34] Argentina began a period of fiscal austerity in 2012.[35][36]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Argentina

Well there are other ideas that work FDR comes to mind so does Argentina and Brazil but yes the Media won’t talk about them. The Robber Barons try to limit our choices by pretending there are no other choices.

Not DDay — Jon Walker
Let that name ring out throughout the . . .okay, that’s a bit much, but it was an excellent diary.

Neri said Brazil has made solid progress by creating 8.5 million jobs since 2003, and by instituting programs such as food assistance for poor families and low-interest credit for first-time home buyers and small-business owners.

An unwieldy bureaucracy and red tape have not slowed foreign investment, which at $45 billion in 2008 is three times as much as it was a decade ago.

Since 2003, more than 32 million people in this country of 198 million have entered the middle class, and about 20 million have risen above poverty,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/02/AR2010010200619.html

Now all we need is Democrats who would be happy to enact policies that are widely popular and shove the results down the throats of the Crazy Party. If only we had some, say, in the White House.

Obama actually called Grassley his “good friend” at one time. With friends like that…

The even worse news is that there isn’t a shred of evidence that Obama has learned anything from his experience

We keep hearing about the “grand bargain”, so Obama’s still thinking about “bipartisanship”.

We keep hearing about the “grand bargain”, so Obama’s still thinking about “bipartisanship”.

But if it’s grand, it must be good. There was a Grand Union supermarket in the New York area when I was growing up, and it was supposed to be a pretty good supermarket.

Grand Old Party.

Obama – Keynote Speech, 2004:
It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

for at least a decade i have cringed whenever i have heard “bipartisan”

yes there are bad laws no one wants but I think the bulk are vaporware laws. Things that have good names to campaign with but dont actually address anything. They can all pat each other on the back and say they gave america universal healtcare, housed all the homeless, protected social security for a generation and made our education system the best in the world.

I frankly dont want watered down, do nothing bills. To me this has all lead to our current point where all we hear is “its better than doing nothing at all!”

Bipartisanship is when both parties expose the depth of their corruption. Jon Walker, great work!

Since we have only two parties, you can’t kick both of them out of office if they make a terrible decision together.

Just like if you have two dogs, either one can fearlessly and shamelessly shit on your rug knowing you won’t blame both and that you never learned how to tell whose it is.

And let’s not forget the Bush tax cuts. (Thanks, John Breaux!)

I don’t think one should be too quick to celebrate the death of a moribund practice. I have been re-reading Eric Hobsbawm’s Age of Extremes, to which he devotes a longish chapter on the death of liberalism in the 1920s and 1930s, which by 1940 had ended parliamentary government in all but a handful of European countries and the usual suspects in North America and Austrasia. One of the enabling factors he mentions was the rise of the extremes (especially the Right, which was the only extreme making advances in those decades) at the expense of the soft and often incompetent middle. The result was the rise of movements that preferred exterminating (sometimes literally) their enemies to finding some common ground with them. We have seen this kind of extermination rhetoric on the Tea-Party side for some time now. It’s hard to believe it could get any traction, but then it was also hard to believe in Europe.

This is not a defense of the craven policies of the Democrats, which have given these movements space to develop, but we shouldn’t think that the craziness is self-correcting. It might not be.

“My good friend” is parliamentary code used for the opposition party, usually it translates as ‘schmuck’.

Nothing is self-correcting, which is why we applaud Dayen and Walker for speaking out about it.

Excellent post Mr. Walker! Every time I hear the word bipartisanship I can’t help but think of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. “Bipartisanship” is certainly overrated as a democratic good.

I agree. Places like this are a big part of the correction, if there is to be any.

Part of bipartisanship is a respect for process. Republicans around the country are bent on destroying the rules of the game. Citizens United, the attack on accepted rights of labor unions in WI, and voter ID laws designed to disenfranchise large numbers of liberal voters are not supported by Democrats. There is not a Democratic equivalent.

One of the most difficult choices those in swing states will need to make is whether a four year stint of Republican rule will demonstrate the failure of their ideas and create space for a more progressive Democratic Party or so change the rules of the game that no political challenge to the right will be legally possible.

Will 45 senate Democrats be able to filibuster judicial appointments they don’t like, or will Mitch McConnell implement the nuclear option he prepared last time.

I’m describing a dilemma; not offering a solution. The dilemma is confronted by those who live in swing states. The rest of us, whether in solid blue or solid red states can show our numbers by voting as we like. I urge people here to respect each other throughout the process regardless of the choices they advocate.

The Democrats really do suck less. The agonizing question, and I note again that it need only be agonizing for those in swing states, is whether they suck enough less to deserve a vote.

Peace and solidarity.

Mourdock’s win over Lugar is great news for the Democrats. It means that a sure Rethug win with Lugar in November is now very much in play as Joe Donnelly is tied in the polls with wingnut Mourdock.Here’s hoping that Mourdock is the Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle of Indiana

No, to me the question is to vote for the one who is simply not insane.

Indiana is usually bright red. It will take a lot for a dem to win there. That may have been the logic to take Lugar out. He didn’t even live in the state and he was a relic. Easy pickings. I doubt the dem can make a run of it.

Jon–

Hands down, your best piece since I’ve been posting here.

Major thanks!

Blue

Here here!!!

The sooner the democratic party, and this president in particular, learn that, for the GOP, the “bipartisan hiway” only runs one-way, the sooner we can get this country back on track.

Bipartisanship isn’t about allowing both parties to come together to pass wildly popular ideas. If something is actually wildly popular, one of the parties should be more than happy to pass it on a partisan basis to get the credit. Nor it about finding some magic “correct” solution that just always happens to be about halfway between the two parties’ positions. That is almost never the case, and if some new half way solution actually appeared to be clearly better, one of the parties should eventually adopt it.

What bipartisanship is mainly about is both parties working together to pass laws the public doesn’t want in a way that avoids any democratic accountability. Since we have only two parties, you can’t kick both of them out of office if they make a terrible decision together. In our zero sum politics if they are both equally bad, they effectively get a free pass on the issue. Those calling for bipartisan consensus to make the “tough decisions” are in reality calling for elected officials to defy the will of the electorate while protecting themselves from being held responsible for their actions.

The best concise explanation of bipartisanshit ever.

No more calls, folks, we have a winner.

George Carlin had a quote something to the effect that, “bipartisan means that something really bad is about to be done to the public”.

The corporate media’s fetishization (is that a word?) of “bipartisanship” has led the way in making our elected official believe “bipartisanship” is what “the people” really want. It’s utter bullshit, and typical egomania by the Beltway insiders: they think we don’t care what policies they put forward as long as our so-called leaders are working together in a civil fashion to get it done. Because it’s not about policy, it’s all about them.

Gawd, I can think of the last time a bipartisan “comprimise” effort did anything but hand over more power to corporations and screw everybody else.

I urge people here to respect each other throughout the process regardless of the choices they advocate.

From your kybd to god’s ear! I will admit that I am guilty of acting in ways quite contrary to that good advice, especially when provoked by some of our more sanctimonious friends. There are some who are quick to vociferously attack and roundly damn any who dare to express an opinion contrary to their own. While I know these folks are committed in their beliefs, there must be some room for alternative views. There are plenty of places to enjoy an echo chamber, if that is what one desires.

As you say, the exercise of a bit of civility is relatively painless and very much appreciated.

lugar is a moderate? I suppose they have you here so we don’t have to go to dkos and worship the pragmatic …?

Indeed, today Mourdock stated precisely that same sentiment — that bipartisanship to him means that the Democrats have to come over to the Republican side of issues. No compromise, no meeting half-way, just do things my way, or take the highway.

Perhaps this troglodyte moron make keep making similar statement such that reasonable people will decide to take a pass on him as they did with Christine O’Donnell and Sharon Angle.

Obama did win the state in 2008, mainly because of huge Dem turnout in Northwest Indiana (which is basically an offshoot of Chicago in many ways).

Excellent post that helped me clarify my thinking. I’m strongly tempted to vote for Romney now, because I’m really frightened by what a second term might mean for Obama’s obsession with the “Grand Bargain.” He mentioned casually in January 2009 that he wants to cut Social Security benefits, and the media (including the blogosphere) didn’t catch it, but over the last year it’s become obvious that, no longer fearing an election, Obama will happily destroy the Democrat Party in order to destroy Social Security. If he can do it in his first year, he’ll have three years to work with the Republicans to cement his policy in place. I have no doubt he can get all the Blue Dogs and DLC Senators to go along with him in a grand show of bipartisan statesmanship.

Fuck civility.