No we don't - we need to find a way for YOUR staff to work better with OUR staff.

[ddeclue]

:rant:

<rant>

LILLY
We've gotta find a way for our two staffs to work together better than this.

SAM
No we don't. We need to find a way for your staff to work better with our staff.

from "The West Wing", "Pro-Am"


So many of you talking TV heads keep talking about how Obama's administration isn't "bi-partisan" enough and how it's "the most polarizing" administration in history.

Sorry CNN punditocracy but it just isn't so.

You can't equate the Democratic and Republican Parties any more as though they were somehow roughly morally equivalent choices with an equal "he said - she said" claim to truth, justice and the American way.

The fact is that Barack Obama is ONLY "polarizing" to Republicans - not anyone else - real Americans love the guy - and good luck finding a real live Republican in the wild these days. Only 21% of Americans identify themselves as "Republican" any more and 69% of Americans approve of Barack Obama at day 100 of his administration.

And is it any wonder their numbers are so low?

Let's face facts, the Republicans have so screwed themselves with the voters that they simply aren't equivalent to the Democratic Party anymore - they've sold out to a post-Katrina-like toxic soup of religious crazies, corporate special interests that would make Gordon Gekko cringe, and neo-imperialists who think that Darth Vader had it right when it came to "shock and awe" and torturing people for information.

The Republican Party has left a legacy of death, despair and destruction in its wake for many years now - especially during the last 8 years when it lied to start a war, failed to stop terrorists, failed to protect an American city from a hurricane, tortured, kidnapped, killed, spied on Americans without a warrant, broke the law and looked the other way while a greedy few stole and stole again from ordinary people just trying to make a living and plan for their retirements.

The Republican Party leadership never felt any need to explain itself or apologize for its mistakes or its greed or its sheer insanity and instead treated the voter with patronizing contempt. They couldn't possibly be wrong, it must be the media's fault for misrepresenting them or the Democrats' fault for "hating America".

Ultimately, starting with the failure to act during and after Katrina, ordinary Americans have finally had ENOUGH of the "Reagan Revolution". The Republican Emperor indeed has been caught without his clothes and the crowd will be fooled no more.

So NO - to paraphrase a famous scene from the political TV drama "The West Wing" - it's NOT Barack Obama's job to be more cooperative and more "bi-partisan" with Republicans, it's the REPUBLICANS' job to be cooperative with HIM.

The GOP has been utterly crushed in two successive elections to the point that they no longer even have a filibusterable margin in the U.S. Senate and have a public approval rating slightly lower than Caligula.

It's not Obama who is "polarizing", it's the Republicans.

Today's defection of Arlen Specter only drives home the point that they've got the smallest tent in their history and ironically should consider renaming themselves the un-reconstructed Confederate Party. Their chief spokesmen are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh - crazy people who if told by a Democrat that the earth was indeed round would swear it was flat just to be contrarian.

If the Republican Party doesn't get today's message, doesn't get Christie Todd Whitman's message that "it's my party too" - that there needs to be a voice for moderates in their party - then they are doomed to extinction. With the 2010 and 2012 elections they will be reduced to being the biggest third party in America, perhaps even going so far as to change places with the Libertarians and you talking TV heads will still not get it even then.

The world isn't "even Steven" or "he said she said". Sometimes there are clearly better and clearly worse choices available and you actually have to choose one and leave the other behind.

</rant>


Doug D.
Orlando, FL