Political obstructionism

There's been sort of a debate going on for awhile about whether Congressional Republicans are willing to work with a Democratic President or are they going to oppose everything proposes just to make him look bad. I'm sure that if you're a principled Republican, well the first thing I'm sure of is that you are a rare creature indeed. The other thing I'm sure of is that you believe Republicans oppose the President because they think he's wrong, and would never put politics before good government. You, of course, would be wrong, but you should be used to that by now.

I got the answer in a book I just started reading titled The Clinton Tapes. The book is the resultof a series of taped interviews between Bill Clinton and the author, Taylor Branch during the eight years he was in office. On page eight of the book Clinton revealed that during a conversation with Republican Senate leader Bob Dole early in his first term, that as his opposition his job was not to make deals with him but to make him fail so that he could hopefully be replaced in four years.

While I'm not suprised that politicians put politics above governing, I was suprised that Bob Dole was one of them. I always thought of him as one of the few Senators of either party that put governing and passing good legislation before anythiing else. What I realize now is that the partisanship in Washington is even worse than I thought.

Just in case you're wondering if Democrats would do the same if the roles were reversed, my guess is that they probably would, but they wouldn't be as good at it as the Republicans are. One exception would have been Ted Kennedy. He was always willing to reach across the aisle to get good legislation passed into law. Remember that he worked with George W. Bush on No Child Left Behind.

What this ultimeatly means is thaat you and I are victims. Democrats and Republicans both know that we need to reform health care, create jobs, and cut the deficit. Now we know thateven if Obama offers legislation that both partiers truly agree might do one of those things, Republicans will oppose it anyway.

That's why the 60 vote majority the Democrats just lost was so important. It prevented Republicans from filibusting bills. Now, because a Democrat just lost that 60th seat because she thought she would win just because she was a Democrat, look for the Republicans to become even more obstructionist than before. They're very good at it. They are about to get even better.