Finally! President Obama ready to abandon unrealistic goal of bipartisanship on health care reform

Posted by AzblueMeanie:

Bipartisanship is healthy to create broad public support for policy decisions. But bipartisanship requires the "loyal opposition" to work in good faith with the majority party to produce such bipartisan policy. The United States has a long and storied history of such bipartisan cooperation.

But in this era of hyper-partisanship made possible by cable TV, talk radio and the internet, the Republicans in Congress have elected to become the "disloyal opposition." Republicans are committed to only one guiding principle: "just say no" to everything proposed by the White House and the majority congressional Democrats. They have publicly declared that their only objective is to see that President Obama fails (and with him, the country). They are the Grand Obstructionist Party. This does not constitute "good faith."

At a time when the country is facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression (brought to you by 30 years of failed Republican economic policies) and is still engaged in two wars overseas, some might argue, correctly, that this attempt to paralyze American government during a time of crisis is un-American and disloyal, bordering on insurrection. Some Republicans (Governor Goodhair of Texas) have, in fact, gone so far as to advocate secession from the United States – an act of treason.

Every modern American president has enjoyed bipartisan support for his agenda from the loyal opposition during their tenure in office, including George W. Bush. Democratic votes provided the margin of victory for much of the Bush agenda, including policies vehemently opposed by the majority of Democrats in Congress and Democratic voters.

We are witnessing the first time in modern American history that a political party has steadfastly refused to bargain in good faith as the loyal opposition and has committed itself to a singular policy of obstruction. We are in uncharted territory. It demonstrates just how radicalized the rump-Republican Party has become now that its numbers have been reduced to its core ideological extremists on the political fringe of the GOP.

One cannot negotiate with extremists intent on killing you (politically speaking).

So it is comforting to learn that President Obama has finally come to this realization after a prolonged courtship of the GOP leadership for their suport, and he is now ready to accept the situation with which he is confronted. Obama Open to Partisan Vote on Health-Care Overhaul, Aides Say:

President Barack Obama may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican opposition doesn’t yield soon, two of the president’s top advisers said.

“Ultimately, this is not about a process, it’s about results,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior political strategist, said during an interview in his White House office. “If we’re going to get this thing done, obviously time is a-wasting.”

Both Axelrod and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said taking a partisan route to enacting major health-care legislation isn’t the president’s preferred choice. Yet in separate interviews, each man left that option open.

“We’d like to do it with the votes of members of both parties,” Axelrod said. “But the worst result would be to not get health-care reform done.”

* * *

Emanuel, making a theoretical case for a party-line vote, offered a definition of bipartisanship based not on roll-call votes but on whether Democrats have accepted Republican ideas during the process of negotiations.

And he said Democrats already have passed that test, pointing to Republican amendments that the Democratic-controlled Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has adopted.

“That’s a test of bipartisanship — whether you took ideas from both parties,” Emanuel said. “At the end of the day, the test isn’t whether they voted for it,” he said, referring to Republicans. “The test is whether the final product represented some of their ideas. And I think it will.”

* * *

In entertaining the possibility of a party-line vote on health care, Emanuel cited “reconciliation,” a parliamentary procedure that a dominant party can use to prevent the other party from blocking legislation.

“It’s not the first priority, or the second priority, or the third priority. We think we can get it done without it,” he said.

* * *

Yet reconciliation “exists as an alternative vehicle, Emanuel said. “That’s what it was created for.”