Alex Massie Alex Massie

Washington’s Unhealthy Fetish for Bipartisanship

So health care has its 60 votes and, since there are, depending upon how one classifies Joe Lieberman, 60 Democrats in the United States Senate all those votes are Democratic votes. No Republican crossed the aisle. At this point you might be forgiven that this is how politics is supposed to work: the side with the majority wins. But that reckons without the amusing wisdom of the Washington “centrist” establishment that measures a bill’s worth not on its merits but by the extent to which it may be considered “bi-partisan”. Thus David Gergen, with David Broder the keeper of the faux-moderate flame, whines:

“In my judgment it’s a tragedy for the country to have a bill this important, a historic piece of legislation, pass with only one party voting for it.”

Oh noes! Gergen who, as the cable networks always remind us, first served in the Methuselah administration, demonstrates one of the ways in which politics in Washington, often scorned for its cynicism, is actually also hopeless naive and even infantile. It is the view that while the House represents the people’s vulgar desires, the Senate is filled with upstanding gentlemen (and the occasional gentle lady) whose wisdom is such that Pericles himself might be intimidated were he to share a chamber with such titans as Ben Nelson, Arlen Specter and David Vitter. As any sensible person could tell you this is awful tommyrot.

The charitable interpretation is that this is another manifestation of exceptional American idealism. But actually, it’s the elevation of a perceived ideal form of politics that bears no relation whatsoever to the reality of politics as it is, and should be, conducted. Bi-partisanship, in this sense, is a mighty con designed to offer each party legislative cover.

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