The Village Fight Song

by digby

Kumbaaya.

Matthews asked David Gregory today about polarization:

Matthews: We all just saw that poll the other day — nearly 55% of married men say they’ll never vote for her. Doesn’t she walk into the white house nearly a pariah?

Gregory: And polarizing at a time when Americans are debating the why we didn’t have a debate about the war and other things … I just think that what Ron [Brownstein] wrote about the hyperpartisanship, we’re going to get into a new era of this, writ large. But at the same time, I mean this is the argument for engagement on the part of the public. If you step back and allow others to be engaged there are so many forces at work, entrenched interests as John Edwards might say, that they will decide this process for you and it will be a totally partisan divided process. And we have so many issues like the environment, war and other things that call for sacrifice.

That is truly moving, don’t you think? Here’s David Gregory all concerned about the “entrenched interests” who are “deciding this process” for us. I wonder who he’s talking about?

And naturally, what the country really needs is bipartisanship:

Brownstein: Even though the ratings and the best seller lists are kind of choosing up sides, I think most Americans would prefer a different kind of politics of consensus. I don’t think everyone wants to choose sides between Michael Moore and Ann Coulter, I think a lot of people are looking for a politics that’s more reasonable. because look, we are not able to resolve immigration, education, the environment, energy, health in this kind of divisive politics. We’re going to need something different if we’re going to get progress and that’s the task for whoever wins.

Brownstein has just written a book about all this, so he’s flogging his thesis. (And I haven’t read it so I can’t comment on it.) Apparently TV ratings, best seller lists, polls and any other measure of political belief. Brownstein just “knows” that none of that reflects what people actually believe — he knows they really want “reasonableness” (and, of course, compromise.) (And when it comes to the Village we know what that means don’t we?)

But I do have to wonder where all these people were when the Republicans were going against the will of the majority of the people in this country and impeaching a president for a trivial matter? (It seems to me that was “writ” pretty damned large.) Was that hyperpartisanhsip? Was it hyperpartisanship when they seized office after losing the popular vote and operated for six long years as if they had a clear mandate for every crackpot right wing wet dream that had been floating around since 1964? Was it hyperpartisanship when they said that anyone who opposed the president was unpatriotic or even treasonous? Has Rush Limbaugh been hyperpartisan for nearly 20 years? Was Tom Delay?

For some reason all this talk of how the American people really, really don’t like all this “polarization” and just want to have some “reasonable” people to come together and form a consensus wasn’t on the menu when the Republicans were in charge of everything and driving this country over a cliff. Then hyperpartisanship was called “the will of the people” even though Landslide Bush could hardly get over the finish line even in the middle of a war, and the congress was nearly evenly divided during his entire term.

Just as they never worried much about the threat to democracy caused by the Bush dynasty when Junior ran after his (failed) father had been either vice president or president for 12 years and are only noticing the dire consequences of such things since a Democratic dynasty threatens, these establishment pundits only seem to find partisanship distasteful when it’s being waged by liberals. When conservatives do it, it’s called “hardball politics” and they all admire them for sticking to their principles and representing their constituents. In fact, when they do it it’s assumed they represent the entire country even though they clearly don’t.

And the funny thing is that the allegedly hyperpartisan Democratic congress is actually allowing themselves to be punk’d over and over again by the the Republicans and are getting blamed for not getting anything done. Therefore, they are going to cry Uncle as loudly as they can so we can end all this unpleasantness and get back to the prized “consensus” that the Village Elders require.

And then Rush Limbaugh and Tom Tancredo will lead us all in a rousing round of Kumbaaya.

And BTW: I knew this would happen.

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