Well, good luck with that, Raby, and please let us know how that "Bipartisan" thing works out for you. It sure hasn't worked with health care reform, or much of anything else, but who am I to tell you not to continue to shoot yourself, the Alabama Democratic Party and the DNC right in the head. I thought "A Congressman's job" was to work for the interest of the people of his District...but then, I'm not a "Washington Insider" like you. I'm just a plain old, Registered Democratic Party, Alabama Granny.
Which prompted another member to ask what does bipartisan mean?
Psst! I'll tell you what it means. It means democrats are going to vote with republicans.
You don't hear of republican candidates saying they are going to Washington to work with democrats for the good of the country. You don't see republicans reaching across the aisle and voting with democrats. Quite the opposite. Republicans tell their supporters up front they are going to Washington to stop the liberal agenda. They don't even try and pretend they are going to be anything but what they are, obstructionist.
I don't want my representative working in a bipartisan manner if it means throwing democratic principles and values under the bus. If I wanted my representative to be a republican I would vote republican. Bipartisan is a two way street not a one way street. What part of that don't democrats understand?
President Obama made the mistake of saying he wanted to work with republicans, which they took to mean, it's our way or no way. I'm with Roland Martin on this one;
Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer made famous the phrase, "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired."
For me, I'm sick and tired of Democrats having power and being unwilling to use it. I've always respected Republicans when they had power because they were willing to use it and maybe apologize later.
You can't be bipartisan with republicans. They take kindness for weakness. They don't have it in them to work with democrats. I mean, how can you work with people whose sole sources of information are Faux News and right wing talk radio?
On almost every issue, Southern Republicans are far to the right of their national GOP brethren. In fact, GOP Southerners appear to be the driving base for some of the most extreme views circulating in the Republican Party today.
Faux News and right wing talk radio aren't the only ones to blame, the MSM we have enables the republicans by pretending not to notice their *ahem* transgressions.
If you don't think there's a media double standard that favors Republicans over Democrats, then let's play a game of what-if.
What if, in 2006, at Yearly Kos, the first annual convention of liberal bloggers and their readers, organizers shelled out $100,000 for former Vice President Al Gore to address attendees? And what if the same organizers booked as an opening-night speaker a fringe, radical-left conspiracy theorist who'd spent the previous year pushing the thoroughly debunked claim that some Bush White administration insiders played a role in, and even planned, the 9-11 attacks. What if the speaker (also proudly anti-Semitic) received a standing ovation from the liberal Yearly Kos crowd?
republicans have no ideas, no agenda, no plan. Which is why I can't understand why some democrats run across the aisle to work with them.
Topping the list is Artur Davis of Alabama, who comes from a D+18 district but yet has voted against his party on health care, detainees, cap-and-trade and Stupak. Fortunately, Democrats won't have to primary him -- he's quitting the Congress to run for governor -- but he's doing a fair amount of damage in the meantime. Following Davis is John Barrow of Georgia, who has been the subject of a primary challenge before. Then there's our good friend Parker Griffith, who voted against the Democrats on all ten bills -- fellow Alabaman Bobby Bright (who I'd give 60/40 odds of also joining the Republicans) was the only other Democrat to have done so.
If bipartisan means it's the republican way or the highway, I say forget it. I don't want a blue dog Congress Critter. I want a proud, liberal, progressive Congressman/woman who is willing to stand and fight for democratic principles and values. John Amato expalins why it matters;
There's an impulse to say screw it all and not show up anymore because "they're all the same," but I can't do that. For the most part, politicians will let us down because they are...well, politicians, but they aren't all the same. There have been plenty of books written about Florida in 2000. If ballots had been properly labeled so that voters who wanted Gore instead of Pat Buchanan could have done so, we might have had a more fair election. And then the Supreme Court would have been left to watch election night like the rest of us and Bush wouldn't have entered the White House in 2000.
Think of what that would have meant for the country:
The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would never have been a reality.
I doubt we would have had the attacks of 9/11 because President Clinton warned that the greatest threat America would face was terrorism and Gore would have not ignored him like Bush did. But if we did get attacked, then you can bet that Gore would have handled it as an adult. He wouldn't sought "revenge" against Saddam Hussein and prioritized control of all that oil. Gore wouldn't have let Osama Bin Laden get away and the world would still be sympathetic to us.
Our efforts to put Afghanistan back together would be finished by now, assuming we even would have tried nation-building there.
More troops and people would be alive and we would have exited the Middle East with our heads held high.
America would never have invaded and occupied Iraq and over 4,000 troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (if not millions) would be alive today.
Abu Ghraib would never have happened.
Terrorist recruitment would have stalled.
Torture would not be part of the American lexicon and the likes of Dick Cheney and John Yoo would never have descended upon the offices of the VP and OLC.
John Roberts and Sam Alito would not be on the Supreme Court and the makeup would probably be 6-3 against the radical Scalia-conservative agenda. A ruling on Citizens United is coming soon. Would the court ever have accepted that case? Not a chance and soon corporations will have a stranglehold on our election system much more than they have now.
George Bush would have been back home in Texas leading the state into secession along with his pal Alberto Gonzalez.
Nobody would have ever heard of Terry Schiavo.
A much swifter and more effective response to Hurricane Katrina would have been implemented.
Bipartisan My Donkey!
Peace Out.
2 comments:
First, nice new blog Redeye.
Now, moving to the Raby comment. Italics is my emphasis: "A Congressman's job is to work in a bipartisan way to make the federal government work for the Tennessee Valley. The analysis of the comment you quote hits upon the first part of his statement (bipartisan) but not the second (for the Valley). I can see your frustration with being bipartisan in general. However, the second part of this quote is the qualifier--work in a bipartisan way for issues that benefit the Valley. This includes telling the story and the work of NASA to congress, working with other Representatives with space interests in their districts to preserve and expand NASA funding. It also can include working with other Representatives no matter the party for defense money, recognizing that many of the government contracts that are given to corporations include jobs in 2 or 3 locations (for example, a contract to Lockheed Martin can involve jobs in Huntsville, Orlando, Sunnyvale, CA, etc.) For Representatives from those districts, they will want to work together for funding.
The point is that there are some things that transcend party lines for Representatives based upon the districts they represent. For North Alabama, that includes space and defense funding. A Representative who is willing to work with other interested individuals to preserve this, despite their party labels, is a good thing.
It's a good thing when it's a two way street. You don't notice republicans preaching about working with democrats do you? No. You know why? Because right or wrong, they stick together. It's party first because they know a house divided will not stand.
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