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Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
I have no opinion on whatever bipartisan initiative he's discussing, but as to this:
"You can't bipartisan the health care crisis. You can't bipartisan Iraq. You can't bipartisan energy."
Bull. Shit. You can't reach any resolution to those issues without some level of agreement across party lines. Period.
For example, the changes in Iraq policy are the direct result of a growing bipartisan --or broader - consensus against the Administration's old policies -- and the Administration's recognition of and reaction to that. If it were just the Dems (in Congress and across the country) who felt that way, this wouldn't be happening.
"There are solutions to these issues, and you have to be courageous enough and concerned enough to actually make the hard choices and advocate for the right ones."
Absolutely. But the rest just doesn't follow. You can't try to reach across party lines to do that?
"And maybe, if you're forceful enough, and savvy enough, you can get members of both parties to agree that your solution is the right one. But you don't start with bipartisanship, you end with it."
What does this mean? Don't compromise on substance to get agreement? Nice plan when you can do it.
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Broder exalts bipartisanship as an end in itself, as this notion that if you can just shelve your party affiliations and come together as public officials, you can accomplish all sorts of good things. This sort of Civics 101, Schoolhouse Rock approach to goverrnment is all well and good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far. This is because there are real differences behind a lot of these policy disputes -- differences of ideas, differences of self-interest. Broder's paeans to bipartisanship involve papering this over.
So, take health care. Since you've read that blog post, you know that Bob Dole was fundamentally opposed to passing health-care reform in the first Clinton Administration, so much so that he was prepared to vote against
his own compromise legislation in order to keep anything from passing. Broder wrote a book about it. For political disputes like this, lip service to bipartisanship is worse than pointless -- it gives political cover to the Bob Doles of the world.
Ezra Klein is not suggesting that policy should only be done by votes on party lines. You end up there. But you don't get anywhere by starting with Broderism.
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But this sounds to me like the words of a man who puts politics above achievement....
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On that you're wrong, in that Ezra Klein is far more interested than most people in policy, and what makes for good policy, and far less interested than many in Left Blogosphere in politics per se. The path to achievement does not lie in Broderism.
