For instance, and doesn't Tom Daschle make a fine example? Sen. Gopper Leader Frist campaigns against his opposite number, Sen. Daschle, breaking a 50 year tradition, straining the bonds of comity in the process. Sen. Daschle, of course, having been accused of all manor of heinous crimes, from treason to not being sufficiently supplicantable in his relations to George W Bush while, horrors, a war was happening, was so fierce and violent in his attacks against Bush that he had to be defeated you know.
"I don't think the success has been overstated. But the continued success I think is still somewhat in doubt. Whether we continue to succeed depends on whether we get the right answers to the questions Senator Byrd was posing yesterday. ... I will say that at this point, given the information we've been provided, I don't think it would do anybody any good to second-guess what has been done to date. I think it has been successful. I've said that on many, many occasions. But I think the jury's still out about future success, as I've said."
He also suggested Thursday that it was necessary for the United States to find Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders for the war on terrorism to be considered a success.
And in response Sen. Daschle got this:
Trent Lott, however, fired back almost immediately by attacking Daschle's right to criticize the Bush administration's prosecution of the war. "How dare Senator Daschle criticize President Bush while we are fighting our war on terrorism, especially when we have troops in the field," Lott stated. "He should not be trying to divide our country while we are united." Bill Frist, called Daschle's remarks "thoughtless and ill-timed." Meanwhile, Rep. Thomas Davis, claimed Daschle's "divisive comments have the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies by allowing them to exploit divisions in our country."
[...] Andrew Sullivan suggested that Daschle's comments marked the start of a campaign "to undermine the war in order to gain some political traction against the president."
Mr. Broder forgets stuff like that, forgets the ugly smears that republicans have been throwing out at Democrats for years, forgets the contempt that Republicans have demonstrated for Democrats in every way, remember Sensenbrenners fit at the basement hearings the Dems were having, just relagating them to basement hearings, Bill Thomas calling the cops on the Democrats, oh the list is a long one, why just yesterday some House gopper of some name, can't remember which one nor does it matter, kept making the snotty little Democrat Party comment, minor to be sure, but a petty insult that demonstrates the GOP's sense of comity nonetheless, yes, David Broder forgets that at the heart of this divide is nobody but Republicans.
Tom Daschle asks a wishy washy question, and you'd think he'd raped Mary Cheney for christssake. And David Broder thinks these eminent gris leaders are going to save the country from partisanship?? Broder wants gruel sans the grey lump of mystery meat or salt and thinks that is going to make this a better place for all.
As Ezra Klein notes though, tellingly so,
You can't bipartisan the health care crisis. You can't bipartisan Iraq. You can't bipartisan energy. There are solutions to these issues, and you have to be courageous enough and concerned enough to actually make the hard choices and advocate for the right ones. [That's why we have political parties, they think their own solutions are the right ones-DGR] And maybe, if you're forceful enough, and savvy enough, you can get members of both parties to agree that your solution is the right one. But you don't start with bipartisanship, you end with it.
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