The Highest Broderism

David Broder's paean to bipartisanship yesterday was pretty funny. Funny in an "what version of Earth in the DC multiverse is this guy living on" fashion.

Some consider Obama's wooing of Republicans a rookie mistake, a measure of his naivete. Others focus on the Republicans and fault them for obduracy in denying Obama all but three of their votes on the stimulus bill. The critics agree that the effort at bipartisanship should end.

I hope Obama isn't listening. It's the worst advice he has received.

It starts from a false premise: that the stimulus bill proves the failure of outreach to Republicans. In fact, had Obama not negotiated successfully with Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter and met most of their terms, his bill would have died. This was a success for bipartisanship, not a failure.

Morone's history also is false. To prove that bipartisanship has never existed, he has to skip over Harry Truman's success with a Republican Congress on the Marshall Plan, Lyndon Johnson's forging the great civil rights acts with Sen. Everett Dirksen and Rep. Bill McCulloch, and Ronald Reagan's steering his first budget and tax bill through a Democratic House.

But the real reason Obama should ignore this advice is that he will need Republican votes to pass the remaining parts of his program. When it comes to energy, regional and commodity interests will inevitably divide the Democrats. They always do. Oil, coal, natural gas and consumer groups will exert their will. If Obama writes off the Republicans in advance, he will end up with a watered-down bill -- or nothing.

It's useless to argue with Broderella, but nevertheless...

Never mind the fact that he has to go far back in history, when Dixiecrats still existed and the parties were ideologically jumbled, to prove his fantasy. He really manages to define bipartisanship in this one, doesn't he? Meeting most of the terms enforced by conservatives is the new working definition. And he demands that the President give in to the terms of Republicans in the same way to pass his agenda.

Is Broder aware of the modern conservative rump faction that includes about 90-95% of elected Republicans in Washington? Their spiritual leader Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that trying to understand a Democrat is like trying to understand a murderer or a rapist. Their favorite son Jim DeMint's plan for economic recovery is to do nothing, stand still and hope everything magically bounces back. Their top legislative agenda consists of cherry-picking pieces of stimulus spending to prove that the entire bill is wasteful, a project they have ANNOUNCED TO THE MEDIA IN ADVANCE.

The parties disagree. These days they violently disagree. And the public has pretty much made their decision on who to support.

According to a new AP poll, voters are assigning blame to gridlock -- and they're blaming Republicans. Asked whether Obama was doing enough to cooperate with the Republicans, 62 percent said he was. Asked if the Republicans were doing enough to cooperate with Obama, 64 percent said they weren't.

Republicans now run the risk of being blamed for their own irrelevance. The stimulus bill passed without their votes and that's being seen as evidence of their intransigence, not Obama's. Bipartisanship is being measured by through the evident intention's of the players, not the final tally on the bill. If this normalizes -- if Americans begin to expect that the GOP won't cooperate and so Obama can't be expected to win their votes -- you'll have a situation where Obama can reach out to them on entirely on his terms because it doesn't matter if the outreach actually succeeds. If the President asked Mithc McConnell to help him pass Medicare-for-All, it's hardly the President's fault if McConnell refuses. And that will lead the GOP totally, and unsympathetically, marginalized.

In fact, Republicans are starting to actually be blamed for their own policy ideas, and are desperately trying to run away from them. Jim Tedisco, the candidate in the New York Congressional special election to replace Sen. Gillibrand, refuses to answer the question of whether or not he supports the stimulus even though the answer is obvious. Rep. Joseph Cao, who beat Dollar Bill Jefferson in Louisiana, is now facing a potential recall as a cause of his vote against the stimulus. This is not a function of whether one side or the other is bipartisan enough, it's that the public has generally discovered that they really don't like Republicans.

Parties disagree. They have a particular platform and they are expected to uphold it. The electorate looks at each side and makes a decision. If they don't like the results they can choose the alternative later. It's called democracy. I don't think David Broder believes in it.

Crooks And Liars About Sums It Up

The Joe The Plumber Victory Tour continued today on Capitol Hill, where he did a "live hearing" on failed Internet channel Pajamas TV and said this:

The money that they’re talking about spending is just absolutely incredible. You can’t get your mind around it. We used to think a million dollars was just the most incredible thing. Then it went to billions and now we’re talking trillions. And trillions is such a large number we just can’t wrap our mind around it, at least I can’t.

I know, inflation blows my mind too. Let me try and help out. US GDP every year is $13 trillion dollars. This is a two-year bill for $789 billion. So it's less than 1/26th of total GDP. See, Mr. the Plumber, one dude in ACORN doesn't get the whole "trillion," it's spread out over 300 million people, which I know is just the most incredible thing.

When they're not zonked out about all the crazy, crazy numbers, they're straight-up lying:

Is there really $30 million in the new stimulus package devoted to saving the salt marsh mouse in Nancy Pelosi’s district?

That’s what some conservatives are now charging, and the claim seems to be gaining some traction with elected GOP officials and conservative media outlets, who are using it to argue that the bill is stuffed with Dem pork.

But there isn’t any such money in the bill. And Pelosi’s office is saying that the claim is a “total fabrication.”

Not that you needed to hear this, but there is no salt marsh mouse in San Francisco.

Meanwhile the Repbulicans' big idea is to get Politico to write a story about "attack ads" when they're spending $35,000 on spots in 29 districts. Not exactly saturation coverage. Speaking of fiscal responsibility and sticking to conviction:

BLITZER: Doesn’t South Carolina need some help?

GRAHAM: Yes. But there’s only one taxpayer. This is not money we found under a tree in Washington. The money we’re sending back to the states came out of the same wallet that the money going to the states came from. So, yes, South Carolina needs help. I’m all for infrastructure spending. But it’s got to be shovel ready. […]

I’m not for $75 billion slush fund for states that can be spent on anything they want to spend it on including budget problems because we’ve got our own budget problems and you’re rewarding states who have done very little to trim up their own budget.

However, when Blitzer asked him whether South Carolina should “take the money, Graham replied: “I think that, yes, from my point of view, I — you don’t want to be crazy here. I mean, if there’s going to be money on the table that will help my state, but I’ve got a job to do up here, and that is to try to help people and not damn the next generation.”

If Democrats were vindictive, the formula would be pretty simple: if you don't vote for the recovery, your district doesn't get any of it. Some Republicans get this, and I'm sure if the Democrats played hardball a lot more would, too.

U.S. Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans, said Wednesday he is likely to vote for the economic stimulus bill when it comes to a vote, probably today or Friday, even if he is the only Republican member of the House to do so.

"I'm voting along what my conscience dictates and the needs of the 2nd Congressional District dictate, even if I were to be the only member of the GOP to vote for the stimulus package," he said.

"Even though it is going to be a humongous bill, even though we will be in debt for years, I believe that more likely than not, I will vote for it because the 2nd Congressional District needs a stimulus package."

A liberal is a conservative who has angry constituents.