The Soap Box                           

 

Bipartisanship on Site Map subfolders   


Paul Krugman, "The Politics of Spite", October 4, 2009, The New York Times

There was what President Obama likes to call a teachable moment last week, when the International Olympic Committee rejected Chicago’s bid to be host of the 2016 Summer Games. “Cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, ... Rush Limbaugh declared himself 'gleeful.' ... So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

 

But more important, the episode illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America. ... But the same principle of spite has determined Republican positions on more serious matters, with potentially serious consequences — in particular, in the debate over health care reform.


The Republican campaign against health care reform ... is the claim — based mainly on lies about death panels and so on — that reform will undermine Medicare. And this line of attack is utterly at odds both with the party’s traditions and with what conservatives claim to believe. ...  How did one of our great political parties become so ruthless, so willing to embrace scorched-earth tactics even if so doing undermines the ability of any future administration to govern?

 

The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern.  Anyone surprised by the venomous, over-the-top opposition to Mr. Obama must have forgotten the Clinton years. Remember when Rush Limbaugh suggested that Hillary Clinton was a party to murder? When Newt Gingrich shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those Medicare cuts? ... the old attacks on Big Government and paeans to the magic of the marketplace have lost their resonance. Yet conservatives retain their belief that they, and only they, should govern. ... It’s an ugly picture. But it’s the truth. And it’s a truth anyone trying to find solutions to America’s real problems has to understand."

 

Barney Frank on Bipartisanship

8min

 

Ray Bellamy, Letter to the Editor, Tallahassee, Fla., Sept. 4, 2009, New York Times 

Fundamental change in our dysfunctional and overpriced health care system is absolutely necessary, and it will be impossible to achieve that transformation while protecting the huge profits of big corporate contributors to Congress.  

 

Allowing Congress, itself dysfunctional and unable to look beyond industry lobbyists, to craft a mosaic that reinforces the most expensive and wasteful processes within our present system was a near-fatal mistake. 

 

For those of us who fervently supported President Obama as an agent of change, settling for some Band-Aids on the present bloated systems, which focus on profit rather than on health, is a missed opportunity of colossal proportions. Not change we can believe in.

 

 

Bipartisan Debate is over?                                     Grassley - I've been told ...

 8min  6min

God Forgive, It's Okay when a Republican Does It      Metaphor - Raising the Goal

 3min  7min

Bipartisan Republican Grassley - Knows better           Howard Dean - Unhealthy Compromise

 4min  5min

 

 

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