Archive for the ‘partisanship’ tag
Krugman’s ‘Lessons of 1992′ #
Paul Krugman wants to bring the rapidly inflating post-partisanship balloon that’s carrying Obama upward in for closer examination. And whether he’s being a realist or a killjoy, he’s got some interesting things to say.
First, those who don’t want to nominate Hillary Clinton because they don’t want to return to the nastiness of the 1990s — a sizable group, at least in the punditocracy — are deluding themselves. Any Democrat who makes it to the White House can expect the same treatment: an unending procession of wild charges and fake scandals, dutifully given credence by major media organizations that somehow can’t bring themselves to declare the accusations unequivocally false (at least not on Page 1).
The point is that while there are valid reasons one might support Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton, the desire to avoid unpleasantness isn’t one of them.
Hating Bipartisanship #
Slate’s Jack Shafer has some — unfairly? — harsh words for citizens and journalists who’ve become fans of the “post-partisanship” of Obama, Bloomberg, and Schwarzenegger.
It sounds heavenly to imagine the banishment of partisanship, gridlock, division, anger, bitterness, pettiness, catcalls, and smears from politics. But once you do that, you’ve basically ended politics, and contrary to Obama, you’ve done nothing noble. We throw dead cats and insults at one another because we have philosophical disagreements that separate us, and all the smooth talk from political pulpits occupied by Obama and Bloomberg can’t change that for long. […]
If you embrace compromise for the sake of compromise and ban division for the sake of political unity, you’re left with parties and candidates that don’t stand for anything. At that point, why should anybody want to vote for a smooth bipartisanist like Barack Obama?