Why Now?
I'm not saying that Democrats should be hardasses about everything now that they've taken control of both houses of Congress.
All I'm saying is, it's really easy to call for bipartisanship when you're the party who has had one-party control of government yanked out from under you.
And it's particularly less-than-palatable when that call for bipartisanship comes from one of the guys at the very center of partisan power grabs for the better part of six years.
Yo, Dubya: I didn't see you asking for bipartisan cooperation when your Republican cronies were busy redistricting Texas to dilute out Democratic votes. I didn't see you clamor for compromise while you consistently nominated (and pushed through) ideologue after ideologue to the federal bench. I didn't see you ask your Republican friends to give any thought to their opposition concerns across the aisle when it came to -- well, any significant issue at all in the past six years that you've been in office.
For as long as you've occupied the White House, I cannot remember a single time when you've ever even noticed that this country has two political parties, one of which disagrees with yours on many issues. You consistently held fast to your party line, and you basically took the position that your party had the power, and your party therefore had the right to make the rules, however myopically they may choose to do so.
So -- again, not that I'm encouraging Democrats to retreat into a "we're in control now so everyone else shut up" shell -- but I find your plea for bipartisan cooperation now to be hollow and, frankly, more than a little desperate.
4 comments:
Indeed.
I can recall one single time he worked across the aisle. On the fairly useless but crowd-pleasing "No Child Left Behind" Act. Did it do anything? By most current accounts, no. But he worked with Ted Kennedy, so he coasted on that for at least a year or two.
Loved this, Dennis! You are so right on! Let loose the fury, I say.
SB, I can't help but respond about NCLB ... I can tell you that NCLB isn't all that great. There are provisions in NCLB that require any school district who accepts federal money to give over the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all high school students to the local military recruiters. The only way to avoid the phone calls, contacts, and visits is for parents to fill out a form that isn't even publicized. Of course, I'm sure rich districts don't have as a big a problem with harassing phone calls as poorer districts do.
Here's the text directly from the NCLB act:
(1) ACCESS TO STUDENT RECRUITING INFORMATION- Notwithstanding section 444(a)(5)(B) of the General Education Provisions Act and except as provided in paragraph (2), each local educational agency receiving assistance under this Act shall provide, on a request made by military recruiters or an institution of higher education, access to secondary school students names, addresses, and telephone listings.
Not to dis the military, but it should be a choice - not something that's pressure-marketed to poor kids. On top of that, how do school deal with this? Many districts ignore it, and don't inform parents.
On top of that, Dubya's brother, Neil, runs a company that sells educational software called Ignite! (Yes, with the exclamation). George, Sr. also invests in it. These educational materials are marketed to schools, and then schools are able to purchase them with federal funds supplied from ... you guessed it, NCLB!
Here's an LA Times article about it.
That family makes me so sick.
Sorry, Dennis, for my rant. I just couldn't help it!
Amen!
And please don't get me started on "NCLB", For the best several years I've listened to my mom (a teacher) muttering about unfunded mandates, and teaching to goals not students.
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