Remarking on his paper's new poll, the Post's Jonathan Capehart lauds bipartisanship:
The president must keep up his bipartisan lashing. It's good for the country if it finally gets Democrats and Republicans to work together. And there is benefit for those up for reelection in the November midterms. According to the poll, "Almost half of all poll respondents characterize their mood as generally "anti-incumbent..." and that "Two-thirds of independents say they would like to look around...." Surely that's because they think incumbents aren't getting anything done. Imagine what would happen if lawmakers had real accomplishments to show the electorate.
That part I bolded, right there? That's exactly why Republicans aren't allowing anything to get done -- because they want incumbents to lose. They can control whether bipartisanship happens, and they're saying no. Back in the day, I had a similar theory of bipartisanship to Capehart's: Republicans would be forced by media pressure and their constituents to work with the president for their own electoral chances. That has turned out to be wrong, at least thus far, but Capehart is still happy to encourage the president to pursue the same fruitless bipartisan negotiations that have failed to bring any accomplishment. There simply isn't the bipartisan ideological structure -- a Congress with a bloc of liberal Republicans willing to sometimes align with Democrats -- that existed in the 1960s to make bipartisanship possible.
Since Capehart writes for the Post's editorial board, I'd be curious to hear his opinion of how the two parties should "quit the bickering and solve the serious problems they face." Does he think the health-care bill does not compromise sufficiently with Republican ideas? Does he think those ideas have any credence at all? Does he think requiring a super-majority of sixty votes for all Senate legislation is reasonable? Bipartisanship for bipartisanship's sake is foolishness. What's the benefit?
-- Tim Fernholz