E.J. Dionne in the Post yesterday:
"Few words have been repeated more often by leaders of both parties and President Bush since the new Congress took power. All of God's children are for bipartisan solutions, bipartisan consultations, bipartisan civility..."
"Are politicians simply lying when they use the word bipartisan? My hunch is that they really think they mean it, since every politician wants members of the other party to acknowledge the wisdom of his or her ideas...
Politicians are talking about bipartisanship because they know that the middle-of-the-road voters who were so important to the outcome of the last election care far more about problem-solving than ideology. It's a good instinct.
But bipartisanship works only when there is sufficient agreement on the definition of the problem being solved and the urgency of solving it...
There are even times when bipartisanship can lead to bad government and incoherent trade-offs that violate the public interest. The classic instance involves one party winning special-interest tax breaks in exchange for the other getting a special-interest spending program to its liking...
Honest to goodness, I truly prefer consensus, civility and problem-solving. But if there is one thing worse than the absence of bipartisanship, it is a phony and ultimately unstable consensus that sells out everybody's principles. For better or worse, we have a lot of fighting and arguing to do before we can enter the gates of a truly bipartisan paradise."
I like Dionne, and I think he makes a good point here. But we have to ensure that the "fighting and arguing" he is calling for helps get us closer to the place where we can truly work together in good faith. If it achieves the opposite then we should do what we can to stop it. Fighting is not productive all the time -- it can be destructive, moving us away from our goals. But I agree with his broader point... fake bipartisanship can we worse that geniune partisanship.