Campaign Promises
by digby
The Wapo, yesterday:
As they prepare to take control of Congress this week and face up to campaign pledges to restore bipartisanship and openness, Democrats are planning to largely sideline Republicans from the first burst of lawmaking.
[…]
The episode illustrates the dilemma facing the new party in power. The Democrats must demonstrate that they can break legislative gridlock and govern after 12 years in the minority, while honoring their pledge to make the 110th Congress a civil era in which Democrats and Republicans work together to solve the nation’s problems.
Really? I remember the Democrats’ campaign pledges to restore openness, although I think they were mostly discussing the need to shed light on the most secretive administration in American history. But I honestly don’t remember them running on restoring bipartisanship and working with Republicans to solve the nation’s problems.
This is a nasty little trap and it reminds me of the way the press falsely characterized Clinton’s campaign in 1992 as being something entirely different than it was and then accusing him of violating his promises. What I remember this time (just two months ago!) is a bunch of pro-forma happy horseshit after the election as everybody politely pretended that they didn’t hate each others’ guts as a matter of protocol. It was most assuredly not a campaign promise. The Democrats were being “polite” and “civil” in victory, which is apparently the only thing anyone cares about in Washington right now.
The Dems ran on a platform to stop the Republican insanity, not to “work with them” and I think those of us in the Democratic base might have noticed if they did that. The only person in the country who ran explicitly on his bipartisan credentials was Joe Lieberman and he was running against a Democrat.
The people who voted for the Dems are a little less concerned with that right now than ending the war in Iraq, overseeing the executive branch and restoring the constitution. Restoring civility is out of the Democrats’ hands — the Republicans are free to start behaving decently any time they choose. Meanwhile, somebody has to start thinking about the needs of the American people.
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