Bipartisanship. Revisited

It's like making the bed. The task is a lot easier if two people do it. There can be reasoned disagreements about tucked in corners and dust ruffles getting accidentally pushed between the mattress and box spring. A couple can disagree about the amount and the arrangement of all of the pillows. But when it gets right down to it, the bed has to be made and the final form will be a compromise.

I think what people expect from our public officials is a reasonable discourse, a minimum of grandstanding and a genuine effort for the compromise necessary. I will excuse Washington reporters and political zealots who seem to function at the level of junior high school kids with their he said she said mentality and the NASCAR desire for terrible and spectacular accidents.

Debate can be boring. if you listen to the talk shows on NPR, which I consider true venues of public debate. (As opposed to the this is my opinion and I want everyone that agrees to call in and support it, programs.) you often get the sense that people are not listening to the subject matter. They some how relate issues that are off the subject and or find pleasure in contriving the tragic outcome in the minutia of details. Sure globalization is an issue we need to discuss and this is how it relates to the late honey dew melon growing season. (Watch C-Span instead of ESPN for a half hour.) The important issue is not that public debate can put you t sleep, but that there be a venue for public debate, because out of that pile of nonsense someone may come up with an answer to a question that has merit.

Our problems in Iraq stem from one very important moment. That moment occurred when the House and Senate authorized the President almost unlimited power to wage war. Almost all who were involved in that vote now admit that there was not a sufficient amount of thought and an overabundance of emotion in that vote. Most would like to take it back.

The domination of one party over the other in both the House Senate and the White House has been a great wet blanket on the issue of debate in government. I don't think it would be much better if the parties switched in terms of their access to power. What we have today is a government that is trying to learn how, after many years of not practicing, to cooperate. What we have now is two groups trying to decide how many pillows should be on the bed after it's made and where they should go.