Bipartisanship Is an Endangered Species

(Feb. 16) -- Is the American political class capable of sincere bipartisanship?

That question, a perennial for newspaper editorials, cable television gabfests and now blogs, is again in vogue at a time when Democrats and Republicans, the White House and Congress, have shown themselves incapable of working together to fix the failings of the U.S. health care system, financial regulation, energy policy and a host of other problems.

When moderate Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh became the latest incumbent lawmaker to throw in the towel, he cited the blistering lack of cooperation afflicting the Capitol and the American political system as a whole.

"There's just too much brain-dead partisanship," Bayh said Tuesday morning on CBS, a day after announcing he won't run again for the Senate seat from Indiana. "What we need to do is to come together as a people and solve the problems facing our country. And unfortunately Washington is just not doing enough of that these days."

President Barack Obama, who campaigned on promises to tackle political gridlock, has made bipartisanship one of his principal themes since last month, when he used the State of the Union address to remind fellow Democrats that "we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills." A breath later he warned the Republican leadership that "just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it's not leadership."

Republicans seem to think it's an argument many Americans agree with, which could explain why the Senate late Thursday got a chance to confirm 27 of 63 presidential appointees whose nominations had been put on hold by Republicans since last year.

At a White House meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans earlier last week, Obama threatened to go around the Senate with recess appointments during the Presidents Day break. Thursday night, after Republicans blinked, Obama said he was gratified by the confirmation vote. But the holds on his nominees, he said, "were motivated by a desire to leverage projects for a senator's state or simply to frustrate progress. It is precisely these kinds of tactics that enrage the American people."

Such accusations of partisanship are, to Republicans, an example of the antagonism Obama himself condemns.

"I know bipartisanship when I see it, and it's not saying one thing and doing another," House Minority Leader John Boehner said after Obama addressed a gathering of congressional Republicans this month. "Over the last year, the Democrats' definition of bipartisanship is to unveil their own partisan bill and then expect Republicans to vote for it."

At the White House meeting, McConnell reportedly pointed out to Obama that President George W. Bush resorted to recess appointments, too, when some Senate Democrats put a hold on his nominees. (Bush, it should be noted, made 167 recess appointments during his first six years in office, including the controversial appointment of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations. In contrast, many of the holds on Obama nominees were placed by senators who made no secret of the fact they were blocking the nominations until the White House supported them on other issues.)

But Democrats haven't shied away from open partisanship either.

After Sens. Max Baucus and Charles Grassley, a Democrat and Republican, on Thursday proposed a bipartisan jobs-creation bill – just the kind of joint-party action sought by Obama – Majority Leader Harry Reid stepped in with his own version that would strip out some tax breaks and other measures specifically included to draw GOP support. He nonetheless called it a "bipartisan bill" and said "Republicans are going to have to make a choice" to get on board with it or not.

"We feel that the American people need a message," Reid said. "The message that they need is that we're doing something about jobs."

But that "message" – promotion of the the idea that Washington cares about unemployed Americans even if there's no bill yet – may be swallowed by the image of clashing politicians and languishing lawmaking.

And every new fight between the parties underlines one of the ugly truths about governing in Washington, like so many other state and international capitals: Politicians are often more intent on scoring points than making policy.

In the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, 81 percent of those surveyed said they could trust the government to do what is right "never" or "only some of the time." That's one of the high marks for cynicism since the pollsters started asking the question in 1976. When asked how much people like the respondents have a say in what the government does, 70 percent said "not much." That, too, was a historic high for the poll.

Cynicism about government is as old as democracy itself, but Americans head into the 2010 midterm-election cycle at a time of particularly scant faith in the Capraesque vision of democratic virtue personified by Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" – whose espousal of "love thy neighbor" on the Senate floor overwhelmed the bad apples corrupting the system.

And that suggests that come November, the lack of bipartisan cooperation could be as big a campaign issue as the problems Washington hasn't resolved before then.