Whipping post partisan

Why indeed?

What explains Mr. Obama’s consistent snubbing of those who made him what he is? Does he fear that his enemies would use any support for progressive people or ideas as an excuse to denounce him as a left-wing extremist? Well, as you may have noticed, they don’t need such excuses: He’s been portrayed as a socialist because he enacted Mitt Romney’s health-care plan, as a virulent foe of business because he’s been known to mention that corporations sometimes behave badly.

The point is that Mr. Obama’s attempts to avoid confrontation have been counterproductive. His opponents remain filled with a passionate intensity, while his supporters, having received no respect, lack all conviction.

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By the way, Krugman alludes to Yeats:

Housekeeping the anger

One thing that angry Republicans in Massachusetts should consider: When they were up in arms over the fact that the Democratic legislature and the governor changed the Senatorial succession law to allow an interim appointment by the governor, the Dems could easily have returned to the status quo before the previous change, which was meant to take a lasting appointment to fill John Kerry's seat out of Mitt Romney's hands.

That would have been bald partisanship (as well as undemocratic). But the Democrats didn't do that. Out of principle.

Tom Delay would never have been so democratic. Republicans should mull that over.

Analogy nostalgia

Some people my age can wax nostalgic for the analogy questions that used to be such a large part of the SAT verbal. Sick - and I don't mean that not in current slang. But those analogies helped us get into college, so they must have been important.

A Scott Brown robo-call a few minutes ago made me think of those long ago questions. He said he was calling about the election, that he doesn't like these calls, and that he doesn't "like the lies and misrepresentations."

I set up the question like this:

"I don't like political calls" : "I make political calls" :: "I don't like lies and misrepresentations" : ________

1. "I'm an independent voice."
2. "I want to change partisanship in Washington."
3. "Martha Coakley went negative first, and I'm pure as the driven snow."
4. "I lie and misrepresent."

Easy question...

Don't wait

Ezra Klein lays out the case for Senate rules reform - specifically, of course, a drastic weakening of the filibuster. Then he goes off the rails:

[A]ttract Republicans to the project by phasing the filibuster out six or eight years in the future, when we can't predict which party will initially benefit.

No, there's already too much delay. When the new Senate is seated on January 3, 2011, change the rules by majority vote.

Stop running away from partisanship. The Republicans don't. Smack 'em down and show America what you can accomplish, Democrats. They'd do it to you. They've prepared to do it in past Congresses. Beat them to the punch.

Nader for 2008

Michael Bloomberg means one thing to the 2008 Presidential race - a Republican win with about 40% of the popular vote. This would be a sacrifice on the altar of false bipartisanship and a disaster for the country, not to mention nearly all the things that Bloomberg claims to hold dear.

Globe endorsements

The Boston Globe's twin endorsements on Sunday are probably more influential than my own by dint of vastly more readers, but they're still not very important in the modern political world.

Endorsing Obama is a slight departure from the conventional. Hillary of course is the safe candidate. The problem I have with Obama is his very lack of a confrontational approach to our completely broken political culture. It's not his fault that he can't risk visibly acting on his true outsider status to speak to that; maybe if he gets elected he will prove to have more steel than I've seen so far.

Hill has plenty of steel, but she's thoroughly compromised and utterly pro-establishment. Her collegial cozying up to Lindsey Graham after the impeachment fiasco is akin to John McCain's willingness to kiss Duhbya's exceedingly hairy ass after what Rove did to McCain in South Carolina in 2000.

The Globe's endorsement of McCain is of course completely soft-headed and conventional. They don't agree with him about anything, but he has a reputation - ill-deserved - as a straight talker. Oh, and he's mythically bipartisan, not toxic.

Please, what we need is not to transcend partisanship, but to severely punish the party that screwed us. A real stand from the Globe for something other than the conventional narrative would have gone like this:

We're willing to endorse the lesser of evils. That's the way politics is. But we're not willing to endorse anyone from the Republican Party, even in a primary. The GOP has seriously damaged this country, and no one bearing its standard deserves election to any nationally significant position.

Yeah, never happen. Too partisan.