Shorter Washington Post Op-Ed Page
Posted on July 28th, 2007 by Gavin M.
Partisans Gone Wild
By Anne-Marie Slaughter
Above: Dean of Princeton’s Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
- Let me tell you about my imaginary fairytale gumdrop kingdom.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard.
Is this the thread with the buffet?
This one has a picture with pretty colors. The other one is all words and stuff.
Gosh! I can’t wait until we all agree to come together in a bipartisan way to support more crazy right wing and harmful domestic and foreign policies!
Why fight over doing the right thing alone when you can do the wrong thing together!
After all, Robert Gates is the most centrist, moderatest, sensiblest guy ever, and the fact that he’s backing his boss’ crazy nutjob rightwing policies doesn’t mean anything!
I’m having trouble working up any kind of outrage over this. Just as the term “activist judge” has come to mean only a judge who’s decisions you disagree with, “bipartisanship” has come to be a code word for a center right political policy. That these words no longer mean what the dictionary says they mean makes real discussion difficult, but the people who want to forgive the republican party for abandoning their core principals to adopt a war-mongering, corporatist, racist theocratic authoritarianism out of fear and hate are the same people they always were. And as their numbers decline, their desparation becomes palpable.
I’d like to see political discourse in this country go back to having some constructive purpose, but as long as one party refuses to accept any rules or even a baseline requirement for honesty and good faith, when one party conflates muslims, mexicans and liberals, hating them all equally, then there is little chance of any kind of real bipartisanship.
When people of courage and integrity find a way to take back the republican party from the criminals, the murderers, the authoritarians and the theocrats, perhaps we can begin again. Until then, the status quo will remain…
mikey
I’m having trouble working up any kind of outrage over this.
If you need more you can pick up big bags of outrage at Wal-Mart for cheap.
John Negroponte?!?
Mikey,
Word.
A very apt summary of our current political climate. If you’re repectful of right-wing opinions, you give them legitamacy. If you call them liars (for lying), you’re being uncivil.
Somehow, they think the whole country isn’t noting what a bunch of babies they are.
I dunno, I’m not a huge fan of that imported outrage. I like locally grown, organic outrage you can get down in Gilroy….
mikey
I’d send you some good old fashioned Iowa outrage, mikey, but I hear Bush recently issued an EO against interstate outrage trafficking. It could get us 30 to life in a facility in an unspecified Eastern European country…
¿MeoWtf?
¿Negroponte?
Ooh, si, Honduran death squads being notoriously bipartisan.
Certanamente, eet takes a real spirit of civility and cooperation amongst all parties to rape mothers
een front of their children, and shoot nuns een the head.
Pfui, thees woman geeves me hairballs.
so.
You could watch O’Reilly and get all the bagged-in-the-field, genetically-modified, factory-farmed, pseudo-outrage-like textured soybean product you can handle.
Most Americans at this point wouldn’t recognize real, old-fashioned outrage — it isn’t pretty, and can have dirt and stuff on it.
Why aren’t you all talking about meeeeee?
EGN:
To be fair, he did boldly forge a middle path between not killing people and nuking Central America. He should be commended for finding a third way between those two extreme positions.
This one has a picture with pretty colors. The other one is all words and stuff.
Yes, but the other thread has a comment accusing Seb of moral leprosy.
Iowa here also, Candy; can’t recall just why sometimes…
anyway, I’m beyond outrage; keep that right-wing whining for faux-civility stoopid shit away from me
Not to be a downer but, what and where is this mythical place of constructive bipartisanshit and dialogue? Was it when the press were attacking Carter 24/7? Was it when the press bowed down and worshiped the ground that Raygun drooled on? Was it when the press obsessed about a conservative Democratic president’s penis?
Was it during the battle to pass the Civil Rights Act?
Lets face it. Politics ain’t never been civil.
Marco
Heydave: Just lately I’ve been running into Iowa ties everywhere on the intertoobz. One thing about Iowa, you can’t go outside without tripping over a presidential candidate. It’s a heaven for political junkies. The day after the caucuses, though, we’ll be left in the gutter in an alcoholic fog, forgotten for another four years.
I’m pretty sure I’ve been in Iowa, but I can’t remember it. But when Shoeless Joe asks “Is this heaven?” and Ray Kinsella says “No, it’s Iowa” it gets me good…
mikey
wasnt’ Chaz in that movie? I think he says “If you kill them, they won’t come?”
or something …
Slaughter is using a different scale to you guys. All of these “bipartisanship” bullshitters do.
Here is how it works. Anyone “liberal” is a loony. Discount them.
So your spectrum runs from Hillary Clinton (practically a communist) through Negroponte and Zoellick (moderates) to Dick Cheney (occasionally strays to the right) and General Pinochet (centre-right).
“From the left, many progressives have responded to the foreign policy failures of the Bush administration by trying to purge their fellow liberals.”
Um, I’ve read that a number of times now and maybe it’s just that I’m really tired, but isn’t that like saying “George Bush reacted to a terrorist attack perpetrated by Saudi Arabian citizens by invading Iraq.”
Look, I just want to be able to go to McCain’s AND Obama’s dinner parties. Who gives a shit how many ragheads have to die?
Partisanship: Your way is wrong, my way is the only way.
Bipartisanship: Let’s compromise and do it my way.
Beware of women of a certain age who cover their sagging necks with scarves.
“Left-liberal blog attacks on moderate liberals have reached the point where “mainstream media” bloggers such as Joe Klein at Time magazine are wading in to call for a truce, only to get lambasted themselves.”
WTF?
Scary that this person is a Dean….
Ms. Slaughter is to be commended for following in Rupert Murdoch’s footsteps and donating money to both Obama and Clinton, the two certifiably unelectable candidates. With a Democratic president and congress, who would bother to come to her bipartisan tea parties? Even a moderate like John Negroponte would find the mention of death squads and fascism somewhat discomfitting and probably decline her invitation to break bread with the real enemy – the reality based community.
Hey purvy. How’s it hangin? Heh heh. I need to ask questions, because your post is incoherent. Hillary and Barrack, the front runners, are unelectable? Letting your bias talk for your brain, eh? Well, there’s a lot of that going around. I’ll leave it, for now.
But dood. You’re enemies with reality? Man, that’s gonna leave a mark. I mean, you are going to have a hard time winning an argument against reality. I can see it now. You go all wack that the sky is green. People tell you the sky is blue. You confidently, even arrogantly inform them “oh no, my friend, you are sadly mis informed, I know for a FACT the sky is green”. And they say “well, dude, go outside and look”, and you’d be all like “well, sure, I mean I COULD go outside and look, but what would that prove? I mean, ultimately, reality is over – rated”.
You’re gonna lose. Every time. Sucker…..
mikey