Liberal lament over Washington's partisan polarization has always been an amusing spectacle. It approached hilarity after the Democrats lost their super majority, but when veteran Utah Republican Senator Robert Bennett lost in his primary fight because he joined them in pushing the stimulus, Democrats went very nearly hysterical over it. What became of those centrist Republicans, the ones courageous enough to reach out for compromise? Well, where did compromise get them, those centrist Republicans?
But the greater weakness in the liberal cant about meeting somewhere in the middle is this: The great domestic question of our time is whether we can restrain and even reverse the catastrophic expansion of government debt before it is too late. And until just yesterday, Republicans were AWOL. Or, to put it another way, they were just where the great conciliators of the Washington Post claim they should be. They had abandoned limited government and were reconciled to tinkering with huge federal entitlements to make them slightly less bankrupting than they otherwise would be.
The advent of the Obama administration, with its pell mell rush to transform us into Greece, is transforming the Republican Party as well.
Another of those damned unintended consequences. Obama intended to transform us into Utopia, not Greece! How could that have gone wrong?
It's an odd but familiar definition of bipartisanship. According to progressives and their media allies, to be bipartisan means to meekly accept progressive, socialist policies. But to get a flavor of a real bipartisanship, look at the opposition to Obama's health care takeover legislation. The media loved to say that no Republican voted for it, but the more important point is that they were joined by Democrats who voted against it. That's bipartisanship. Polarization is driven by the left, which is ultimately driving that Republican transformation. Let's see how well that goes.
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