As they congratulate themselves for making a budget-cutting debt-ceiling deal with congressional Republicans, the Democrats are hoping no one will notice that they surrendered unnecessarily both on policies and principle. Once again, the bogus myth of bipartisanship has been invoked at the American people’s expense.
AUSTIN – There is an odious American political mythology concerning bipartisanship, according to which bitter adversaries, scarred by battle, find common ground, join hands, and stroll off together into the sunset. It is mostly hokum. Ulysses S. Grant did not reconcile with Robert E. Lee after Appomattox. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not reconcile with Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression, nor John F. Kennedy with Richard Nixon after the 1960 election. One does hear sugary reminiscences of Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill swapping blarney. But the real O’Neill fought Reagan – on principle and on politics – with everything he had.
AUSTIN – There is an odious American political mythology concerning bipartisanship, according to which bitter adversaries, scarred by battle, find common ground, join hands, and stroll off together into the sunset. It is mostly hokum. Ulysses S. Grant did not reconcile with Robert E. Lee after Appomattox. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not reconcile with Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression, nor John F. Kennedy with Richard Nixon after the 1960 election. One does hear sugary reminiscences of Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill swapping blarney. But the real O’Neill fought Reagan – on principle and on politics – with everything he had.