Now that I’m back to reading the news, I get to take a fresh look at things in a way I haven’t. I’d been neck deep in politics all of 2006, so by the end of it I was pretty bitter. So today I read a few articles on Bush and find that he’s written a big ol’ editorial about the incoming Congress. Neato!
Together, we have a chance to serve the American people by solving the complex problems that many don’t expect us to tackle, let alone solve, in the partisan environment of today’s Washington. To do that, however, we can’t play politics as usual. Democrats will control the House and Senate, and therefore we share the responsibility for what we achieve.
Right off the bat, you know what it sounds like to me? Like Bush is afraid that the Democrats are going to do what the Republicans have been doing since 1994 (and more so since 2000): using their majority status to do whatever the hell they want and taking a nice big crap on the faces of the left.
Bush and the Republicans have wielded their majority status like a sledgehammer, and called any opposition “fringe”, “extreme”, “radical”, or “far-left”. Any attempts made by Democrats to oppose the Republicans, particularly in matters of the war, was met with scorn and derision, all made under the guise of “that’s not what America wants”.
Well now America wants the Democrats, and Bush is frantically trying to play nice. After years of being called “defeatocrats”, accused of siding with Al Qaeda, and sneered at as just plain un-American, they are in the majority, elected by the majority, and represent the majority.
Now, suddenly, the right wants us to work together. Only not really. Bush’s definition of “bi-partisan” seems to differ slightly from the rest of ours. Take a gander at this nugget about the war:
We now have the opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus to fight and win the war.
Right. We need to build a consensus to fight and win. In Bush’s world, “working together” means “working together to do what I want”. When Bush stresses “bipartisanship”, he’s telling the Democrats please please pretty please don’t treat me like I’ve treated you. A while ago I wrote this:
Ever seen a movie where there’s a prison guard (maybe in the US, maybe in a war) who beats all of the prisoners mercilessly, and then for whatever reason they’re all free? Think about the look on that guard’s face when he finds out.
That analogy still holds true now. Oppressors are only worried about coming together peacefully when they can’t oppress any more. If the Democrats agree to this bullshit, not only will they be folding under pressure for no good reason, they’ll be spitting in the face of everyone who voted for them. This was for a change, and a change we better get.
ADDENDUM: Oh yeah, I forgot. Am I the only one who found this sentence incredibly ironic?
Our Founders believed in the wisdom of the American people to choose their leaders…
They sure did, George. They sure did.
