Discerning commentator EJ Dionne writes in the Washington Post: “Bush promised to change the ways of Washington. He has succeeded brilliantly, but not by creating the “new tone of respect and bipartisanship” he promised in 2000. The new tone in Washington is not bipartisan but hyperpartisan. “Bipartisanship is another name for date rape,” said White House ally Norquist, according to the Denver Post this week, as he promised to bring Washington’s new ferocity to the state capitals.
With ruthless brilliance, the White House is wielding power through the unrelenting imposition of party discipline. As a result, Bush will certainly help at least one industry in a troubled economy. All the textbooks pronouncing the death of political parties will have to be pulped and rewritten, creating who knows how many jobs.”
Essentially, Dionne opines that, in the good ol’ days, such a slim, partisan margin would result in compromise and bipartisanship, but now no matter how slim the advantage, it is now used as an opportunity to run rampant. And, I would add, even if the Democrats can take the White House in 2004 — the prospects for which look exceedingly dismal given their inchoate ineffectuality* and the deathgrip the Republicans have on the terms of the public debate — the next administration’s ability to govern democratically, such as it were, will have been immutably crippled on the domestic front by the massive Bush increases in the public debt and in the foreign relations arena by our unilateralism and squandering of the goodwill of the world community and our erstwhile allies.
*Although Howard Dean seems to be catching many people’s imagination, dismissing the rest of the Democratic field as ‘Bush lite” and speaking remarkable common sense. At least he is willing to clearly differentiate himself. If the Greens hold to their seeming dawning recognition that there really might be a difference this time around between reelecting Bush and the right Democrat and refrain from mounting a challenge from the left, we might see a real ideologically cast race.
