By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – February 21, 2007
Within the last month at least two of the public officials
putting their hats in the ring for the Presidency have stated their principal
reason for doing so was “to end the partisanship of the current era.”
“People want,” we were told, “a coming together in Washington to face the real
problems of the nation and solve them together.” This is what, it was
averred, what the voters were voting for last November.
One of these worthies was Governor Mike Huckabee of
Arkansas, a Republican. (He may well be best known for his highly
self-publicized and very successful personal journey to major
weight-loss. It happens that with another hat on I write professionally
about weight-loss. Success comes hard. The Governor is to be
commended.) The other was Senator Barack Obama. Now Sen. Obama has
been spoken of by senior faculty at the Harvard Law School as the brightest
person ever to have attended it.
Within a couple of weeks of his announcement of his
“exploratory committee” he was already changing that tune, in preparation for
his formal announcement of “I’m doing it,” which came on Feb 10 at the
long-time home of Abraham Lincoln in Obama’s home state of Illinois. (Too
bad the calendar didn’t work out so that Obama could have announced from
Springfield, on Lincoln’s Birthday. But Saturday is a much better day for
getting featured [again] on the Sunday TV-talk shows than Monday is.)
Huckabee on the other hand, is, for the time-being at least sticking to his
“all we need is an end to partisanship” theme. I guess he just feels that
repeating the new Republican mantra of “let’s all be like Reagan and promote
small government, lower taxes, a strong national defense, and make our country
safe” isn’t going to wear too well when they are going to have the Bush record
hung around their necks in 2008, that is if the Democrats are smart enough to
do so.
“Partisanship” and “bi-partisanship” have two sets of
meanings. There is legislative partisanship and there is political
partisanship. Since 1994 the Republicans have given the nation very good
lessons in what both mean. Legislative partisanship is engaging in such
practices as making sure that the minority party on the Congress is give no
significant role or input in the legislative process. Former House
Speaker Dennis Hastert was well-known for bringing legislation to the floor
only if he had a majority of the Republican Caucus behind it. He never
asked the Democrats what they thought. Former Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist was famous for setting up House-Senate Conference Committees (the bodies
that sort out differences between the House and Senate versions of similar
legislation) with no Democratic representation. President Bush was famous
for never inviting the Democratic legislative leadership in for consultation on
legislation he favored. But then again he hardly ever asked the
Congressional Republicans for their views either. He just asked for their
votes, and if that failed just bullied and bludgeoned them into “seeing it his
way.”
Then there is political partisanship. Over the past
twelve years or so the Republicans have given us a good look at what that means
as well. When the Clintons proposed their health plan in 1993, former
Republican Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole quickly took control of the attack
on it. This despite the fact that it had much in common with a
little-know national health insurance program that Pres. Nixon sent to the
Congress in the spring of 1974, introduced into the Senate with a stirring
speech that could have been used to introduce the Clinton Health Plan (CHP) by
---- Bob Dole. At the time Bill Kristol sent around a faxed message to
sundry Republican in Washington that told them that the CHP had to be
defeated. Why? Because if it passed that would make Clinton a
shoo-in for re-election in 1996. (I happen to have copies of both
documents in my possession.) That’s legislative partisanship.
And of course, the impeachment attempt, using the Paula
Jones Perjury Trap, took place when our nation was heavily involved in armed
action overseas, in what became a successful to prevent further genocide in the
Balkans (without, if I recall correctly, incurring one American death).
That’s political partisanship. As is the constant theme that has emanated
from Republicans within and without the government since the beginning of the
Bush Presidency that any American, elected official or not, who doesn’t fully
support his policies is, in the deathless prose of Ann Coulter, a traitor (or
some euphemism for such). Currently, one of the leading members of the
Privatized Ministry of Propaganda (PMoP), Sean Hannity, on his new Sunday night
show on the Fox”News”Channel, has a weekly feature called “Enemy of the State.”
One or more political opponents of Georgite policy is chosen for the honor, and
given that charming label, so popularized by the German Nazis and the Soviet
Stalinists.
So we know all about both political and legislative
partisanship from the Republicans. Of course they are now in the
legislative minority and have a president who has the worst ratings of any
President, ever ---- well, at least since Herbert Hoover, and the polling
wasn’t quite as sophisticated then as it is now. But OK, that’s the
Republicans. Why shouldn’t our side try to re-establish bi-partisanship
(that is if true bipartisanship, of either the legislative or the political
sort ever existed, on our side outside of the fantasies of the Democratic
Leadership Council and Joe Lieberman’s brain)? Because the issues of our
time clearly have two sides. The Republicans stand on one. The
Democrats (or many of them, more and more of them in fact) stand on the
other. Sorry folks, but there are no compromises to be had on the major
issues of the day.
For example, you are for a never-ending search for a totally
non-defined “victory” in Iraq or you are for US withdrawal by a date certain
(details to be worked out). You either believe the overwhelming
scientific data that global warming is real and that human activity is its
major cause and that mandatory government action needs to be taken in order to
deal with it or you don’t. You either believe that Social Security should
remain as a mandatory government program or you don’t. You either believe
that environmental preservation is a good thing and requires significant
government regulation or you don’t. You believe either in a multi-lateral
foreign policy or a unilateral one. You either believe that the use of
nuclear weapons should be an active part of Pentagon war-planning in the
current era or you don’t. You either believe in freedom of belief as to
when life begins or you don’t. And you either believe that the role of
the Federal government should be defined by the Preamble to the Constitution or
you believe, as the highly influential Republican think-master Grover Norquist
does, that the Federal government should be reduced to the size of a bath-tub
and then drowned in it.
For those of you who have not memorized it, that Preamble,
the most ignored part of the Constitution other than the 11th and 12th Amendments, reads: ”We the people of the
United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America.” Yes, the Constitution prescribes a broadly activist role for
the federal government, so the so-called “strict constructionists” on the Right
always ignore it, just as they ignore the Ninth Amendment, which reads: “The
enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed
to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” But I digress.
Barack Obama, following the theme of his recent book, began
his campaign talking about bipartisanship and “coming together” as “the
American people want us to.” It is said that Obama has a remarkable lack
of dependence on issue-advisors (he does seem to have excellent planners,
organizers, and advance people), on polls, and on focus-groups (thank
goodness). It is said that he relies much more on what his very sharp
mind, processing information and events, tells him is going on. And so,
when he announced, his platform was remarkably partisan, in the best Democratic
sense of the word. Thus he is for: abortion rights (and against
restrictions on public financing of abortions); mandatory greenhouse gas
caps to deal with global warming (which he obviously accepts as scientific
fact); a universal-coverage health care delivery system by 2012 (details to
follow); a progressive approach to dealing with illegal immigration; a regional
conference, not more war, for dealing with Iran and Syria; an Iraq withdrawal
on a timetable, to be concluded by March 31, 2008 (no foolin’); and Federal
support for stem-call research. The only nuanced position I have seen
from him so far is on the so-called “gay marriage” issue. He has nothing
against it, but in the law would sanction only civil unions.
Bipartisanship? Hardly. He is against the
Republican Party platform on every one of these issues.
Partisanship? Oh yes. My how you’ve changed in a month. Go
get ‘em Barack.