There is Change and then, There is Change

CNN carries the story today that Republican Senators McCain and Lindsay Graham are saying that the way the President got the stimulus package approved was not a good example of bipartisanship. According to McCain, this violates the promise of change that President Obama promised the people in his campaign. Well, there is change and then there is change.

As I remember it, from my perspective and, evidently from the majority of all voters, the change we wanted was not exactly that every bill would be supported in a bipartisan manner, but that the bills passed by the majority would actually be helpful to the nation. This is the change we wanted after 8 years of partisan bills passed by the Congress which did not help the country or bills that would have helped the country but did not get any support from the Republicans.

As far as I remember, the Congress, like the country is working on agreeing to whatever gains a majority of votes. In the Senate, the President needed at least three Republican votes and he found three sane Republicans (I am not sure if this represents all of them...the sane ones, I mean)and got the 60 votes he needed.

So maybe what McCain and Graham want is that we change the rules and give the minority the opportunity to get what they want as long as they get, let's say, 40% of the vote.

What President Obama promised was that he would work in a bipartisan way, which all agree he did. But, in the end, despite making some compromises that the rest of us think are ridiculously inneffective (the tax cuts, for instnace), there was no response. He is not obligated to contribute to Republican efforts to hold the country hostage for the sake of some idea that McCain and Lindsey have of what it means to be bipartisan. Most of all he cannot deliver real change to the country by agreeing to include ideas and actions proven by the last eight years to be innefective, wrong and detrimental in legislation just for the sake of meeing the McCain/Lindsey definition of "bipartisan."

The Republicans made a big mistake in not voting for the stimulus. President Obama cannot save the Republicans from their shortsighted view of how to play politics in a world that needs vision and bold action. Instead, the Republicans played to the Limbaugh base and, thus, deepened their irrelevancy for the nation.

It just brings joy to my heart to see the Republicans trying to hide their cowardice behind criticism of the President's understanding of bipartisanship. It is a strategy without legs. The more the Republicans can discredit themselves, the better chance the country has for a good life.