Bitter Partisanship

There's a mantra going around the elections and media that bitter partisanship has caused us endless difficulties. Candidates or erstwhile candidates accuse all concerned of putting partisanship before public good. I would be one of the first to admit that partisanship started getting real bitter in the 90s, Gingritch followed by Tommy DeLay elevated nastiness to ordinary business where Democrats were concerned. Following George II's election we had the elevation of Rovian politics, everywhere all the time, especially in previously off limits sections of government.

The Clinton tax bill that began progress on balancing the Federal budget went, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department has been turned into a sub-section of the RNC, civil liberties including Habeas Corpus have been abridged, there has been a near constant effort to marginalize gays, overthrow choice in abortion, and religion openly government funded. Draconian economic measures have been instituted, Unions hamstrung, and wages crushed by out and in sourcing. Political opponents of the war branded traitors and weak on terror. A constant drumbeat of fear has been maintained, voters summarily disenfranchised, elections cast into doubt. This is on one side of the equation, the Republican side. The Democratic congressional caucus is universally derided as spineless, by friend and foe.

And so, we're treated to the spectacle of a billionaire authoritarian mayor and bunch of whiners getting together to play at a third party on the basis of bitter partisanship. A Democratic Presidential candidate talks about bitter partisanship. The, for god's sake, media parrots this nonsense, the people who rolled over for BushCo on the run up to the war in Iraq, who became that Administration's propaganda mouthpiece in fear of the traitor label, who as victims of the bitter nasty rhetoric of the Republican Party now repeat this garbage.

Yes, there has been Democratic opposition to racist theocratic nut case Federal appointments, some. Yes, a Gay Marriage Amendment to the Constitution was blocked. We're nearing the end of the list of "bitter partisanship" accomplishments of the Democrats. Take a look at the voting record of the proponents of a "cure" for this bitter partisanship. In many cases they've enabled the strangulation of the Bill of Rights and other basic law and voted for the economic destruction of the worker. They propose that they have a solution?

You will excuse the heck out of me if I don't buy in. If you voted for the Military Commissions Act or the Patriot Act or the FISA Repair Act as a Democrat or even moderate Republican you deserve the scorn of every American citizen. If you voted for the Bankruptcy Bill or the Credit Reform Act you deserve the scorn of every worker. If you voted for the Bush Tax Bill you deserve the scorn of everyone not a multi-millionaire. In fact if you weren't strongly in opposition over the last twenty years you have no right to the (D) after your name, if you did not fight tooth and nail for the ordinary American and helped crush his rights and his economic standing you deserve scorn and rude treatment. Perhaps you do not understand that a foot on the neck is an act of war. The class war the Republicans deride and engage in at every opportunity.

Sure, it was nice when Congressmen could have floor debates and then have dinner and drinks and friendly relations, that gets pretty tough to do when your opponent is calling you a traitor, an enemy enabler, and other nasty names - in public, with the complete encouragement of their Party, their Administration, and their media lackeys. When the hand reached across the aisle contains a poison pin you get reluctant to take it. Does anybody remember the Nuclear Option when that Party was trying to ram through the most offensive possible candidates for appointments? Opposition to this is bitter partisanship?

Bitter partisanship would involve trying to jail or hang these people - or just shoot them down like foaming curs - but that isn't what's happened. They've not been censored or impeached or otherwise really interfered with. A publication that prints an ad with "Betrayus" in it is censored in Congress, the Vice-President is free to swear at and denigrate as traitors his opposition. Every Congressional investigation that touches on blatantly illegal or unethical behavior is blocked by Executive Principle and doesn't go to Federal Court or the Sargent At Arms marshals, nope, it just languishes - politely.

You proponents of the phrase bitter partisanship must mean something by bipartisanship more along the lines of just give the Republicans whatever they want. You do not mean find a middle way, the middle way is what is repeatedly attacked by the other side. They will not accept middle, they will accept only what they want; despite the overwhelming majority of Americans not wanting it. The Ben-gay bunch out in Oklahoma can shove their idea of bipartisan sideways some place. The rightwing neocon-theo-nut agenda is not the middle, it doesn't even look at the middle and the left not going along isn't bitter partisanship, it is only sense in operation. If the Democratic Party was holding out for my lefty vision you could call it serious partisanship of a Democratic nature, but even I'm not doing that.

I am astonished and disappointed that the Voter seems to be falling for this garbage, that their memory is so short that they give this even passing thought, much less a vote. There are a handful of Democratic legislators in Washington DC that are worth spit, it would be worth the time of the Voter to take a look and see who stands for exactly what. If you vote for or against someone based on gender or race or religion or ancestry rather than where they stand in this mess, you've engaged in truly stupid behavior and you deserve the results the rest of us have to live with.