On Snowe-Landrieu Bipartisan Initiative: Kiss My Democratic Ass
By Bob Geiger
Created Dec 22 2006 - 11:09am
Nausea alert: Do not read this on a full stomach if you're a Progressive,
who has had it up to your eyeballs with some elected Democrats regularly
accepting prison shower-room, Ned-Beatty-in-'Deliverance' [1] treatment from
Republicans and then meekly saying "Thank you, sir, may I have some more?"

Because what you're about to read is the Washington, D.C. version of just
that.

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) issued a joint press
release [2] yesterday announcing that they want to convene a group of
Republicans and Democrats in the new Senate to "build on the success of
'Gang of 14'" and "forge bipartisan consensus on key issues in the 110th
Congress."

"I couldn't be more pleased to join with Senator Mary Landrieu to build upon
the success of the bipartisan Gang of 14 with a group committed to bringing
comity, consensus and legislative achievements back to the halls of the
Senate," said Snowe. "The American people are tired of partisan attacks and
intransigence from the Congress; they are rightly demanding results. And
Senator Landrieu and I believe this group will serve as a productive
catalyst to bring the Senate together across party lines."

Not to be outdone, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) also
heralded the arrival of a similar entity yesterday, also issuing a joint
statement [3] saying they are forming a "Bipartisan Members Group to create
an opportunity for Senators to know one another better across party lines."

Landrieu and Lieberman have sidled right up alongside Alexander and Snowe,
making grand statements about how it's time to come together and guessing --
incorrectly -- what message the American people delivered in a loud, clear
voice on election day. And, like the weak-kneed centrists they are, their
capitulation is very much akin to the wife who reunites with her abusive
husband because he mumbles "I'm sorry, baby" after breaking her nose for the
third time.

Isn't it convenient for Snowe, Alexander and other Republicans to initiate
this transparent maneuver and now extend a hand across the aisle for
something other than slapping Democrats? Isn't it just freakin' amazing that
this change of heart comes right when they are voted out of the majority on
a clear mandate of the people and now have to themselves face the
legislative life Democrats have lived for years?

And true to their ongoing status as political followers and not leaders,
Landrieu and Lieberman -- putting aside the fact that Holy Joe can no longer
even be considered a Democrat -- lap it right up and forget who it is that
over the last few years would not have pissed across the aisle if a Democrat
was on fire.

These two want to snuggle up to the same people who forced the formation of
the "Gang of 14" by threatening to remove the filibuster as the minority
party's only vestige of procedural control -- and thus create a Senate where
Republican dominance would be so non-negotiable that Democrats might as well
stay home every day and watch "Judge Judy [4]."

The best former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) could ever do for the
Democrats was to threaten the legislative equivalent of cutting their last
life-line and making the confirmation of some onerous right-wing judges the
only option to drowning.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said earlier this month [5] of the Republicans'
filibuster extortion that "it was so anti-Senate and it was so
anti-American" and vowed he would never do something that despicable in his
new role leading the Senate.

Republicans who suddenly want to make nice are the party of incoming
Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) who sneered [6] "I thought we were having
global warming" right into the Congressional Record as Democrats fought
earlier this year to fund the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program
(LIHEAP) for the elderly and disabled.

And this same Republican party behaved in an ongoing partisan fashion so
extreme that they simply abandoned their Constitutional responsibility to
perform oversight on the executive branch of government, in favor of rigid,
party-line tribute to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and zero loyalty to the
American people.

Pat Roberts (R-KS), the GOP's empty suit who warmed the lead chair in the
Senate Intelligence Committee for the last two years, would not have
investigated this White House if the FBI showed him video of Bush and Cheney
delivering a dozen roses and a Whitman Sampler to Osama bin Laden's cave.
This highly-partisan malfeasance eventually forced Reid [7] to invoke Senate
Rule 21 [8] in November 2005 and shut down the Senate entirely, in a
desperate attempt to get Republicans to act responsibly and at least begin
investigating Bush's shady use of pre-war intelligence to start the Iraq
war.

The Republican party's newfound bipartisan spirit didn't seem to exist when
they shoved through ultra-conservative Supreme Court nominees in lieu of
forcing Bush to nominate moderates that both parties could rally around.
Their consensus-filled hearts weren't apparent when they swift-boated Max
Cleland and John Kerry and, most recently, did the racist "Harold, call me"
number on Harold Ford Jr. in this year's Tennessee Senate contest.

Is there a thinking Democrat in the country who believes we can expect even
the slightest derivation from that slimy game plan in 2008?

In addition to shooting down almost 75 percent [9] of the few
Democratic-sponsored bills that even made it to the Senate floor, the
Republicans have previously duped Democrats into supporting the bogus No
Child Left Behind scheme -- only to refuse full funding for the program --
questioned their patriotism when some refused to support the Patriot Act and
the stupid flag-burning amendment and, of course, lied to get authorization
for the Iraq war.

Famed Republican guru Grover Norquist once said [10] that "bipartisanship is
another name for date rape" and, far from being extreme invective, this is
exactly the creed that the Republican party has lived at least since the
old-school King of Slime, Lee Atwater, race-baited the 1988 presidential
race by springing Mr. Willie Horton [11] on Michael Dukakis. People like
Lieberman and Landrieu will never understand that Republicans see true
bipartisanship not as a strength, but as a weakness to be despised and
exploited.

In a joint letter to their Senate colleagues, Snowe and Landrieu tried to
speak for the country and said that Americans ". are tired of the extremes
on both sides pulling us apart, paralyzing effective action. That was a
clear message of the 2006 elections."

Nonsense.

By voting for such a colossal shift in the House of Representatives and
giving Democrats control of the Senate in a massive and rare six-seat
pickup, Americans said one thing and one thing only to Republicans: "We want
Democratic leadership and we don't want you in charge any longer." Period.

They didn't say we like some of what you've done the last few years -- they
said we like none of what you've done. So why in the world would any
Democrat interpret that landslide endorsement for complete change as such a
watered-down, half-and-half order?

Harry Reid did a superb job keeping Democrats together as Minority Leader
and one of his biggest challenges in the next two years will be to honor the
voters' mandate and move real Democratic change through the Senate without
any traces of the Republican hangover that Americans have so strongly
rejected.

If Reid remembers the lessons of the last few years -- on where the GOP
truly stands on bipartisanship -- and shows leadership on the ideals he
fought for in vain in the last Congress, look for a lot of howling and
hypocritical whining from the Republican side of the aisle.

And they can all just flat-out go to hell.

Republicans made this bile-filled, partisan stew long ago -- now they can
damn well eat it.

_______




About author You can read more from Bob at BobGeiger.com [12].

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles.  It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt.  But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson