A proposal of bipartisanship

I went to church with Andy Card a couple of times. Most recently this past Christmas Eve, as a matter of fact. I wrote a post about it back then, if you want to dig. But you don't have to, because it's not really that interesting. Anyway, he seemed like a nice enough guy, and I'm sure he is.

But that doesn't stop him from being a partisan hack, just like many others on both sides of the aisle.

Card was all over the talk shows this weekend, spouting that new GOP line that Democrats need to be part of the solution rather than complaining about the problem. He talked about a couple of issues. There's the judges and Bolton, there's DeLay, and there's Social Security. He says that he'd like the Democrats to be more than just oppositionists. But is that all they're doing? And how can you tell when you're coming from just as stubborn a position? There's no common ground being found here. And when you look at what Card's really got to say here, it's pretty simple.

• Democrats should get over themselves and confirm Bolton
• Tom DeLay didn't do anything wrong, and everybody's just making it all up
  
• The only way for Democrats to cooperate on Social Security is to go with the President's plan, such as it is
• Even though it's legitimate and not against the rules to use the filibuster on judicial nominees, he doesn't like it and it therefore shouldn't be allowed.

That's not building a bridge. That's not reaching out. That's like a deal with the devil. To basically tell people that the only way for them to gain traction is to give up their own sincerely held principles is naive and laughable. We can have debate, and that's fine, but when it gets to the point where your rhetoric denies the possibility of another point of viiew, then we're in trouble.

Fargus...