Face the nation: pundits puzzled by partisan rancor

[Cocoa]

Anyone see them scratching their heads and furrowing their brows over this bothersome new phenomenon of politicians demonizing one another?

Here's my email to "Face the nation"

Dear Face the Nation,

Your entire panel seemed genuinely puzzled by the partisan rancor in Washington these days.

More puzzling to me is why all your intelligent panelists were so puzzled.

Even more puzzling is why they didn't make any reference, unless I missed it, to the Clinton impeachment. Did they forget about that already? It was only five years ago, after all.

Maybe they forgot about it because it would undermine their implied thesis that the rancor somehow arose out of nowhere, and that it's equal between the two parties.

The reality, in my opinion, is that it's far from equal, in fact it is a republican strategy.

I'm including a speech that Dick Gephardt gave five years ago last week. Maybe Face the Nation can do an anniversary remembrance, both for history, and also as an example of how to solve the problem all the panelists seemed so very concerned about.

Here's the speech:



Text of Richard Gephardt's speech

December 19, 1998

Mr. Speaker and members of the House of Representatives, this vote today is taking place on the wrong day, and we are doing it in the wrong way.
I am disappointed and I am saddened by the actions of the majority in both the timing and in the method that we are considering the most important act that the Constitution asks us to perform.

The actions of the majority, in my view, show a lack of common sense and decency and is not befitting of our beloved House. As I said yesterday, when our young soldiers, men and women, are in harm's way.

We should not be debating and considering and talking about removing our commander-in-chief. If we believed that this would go on for days and days, I could understand the decision to go forward today. I do not believe it will go on for days and days. And I believe that we send the wrong message to Saddam Hussein and to the British and to the Chinese and to the Russians to be on the floor of this House today when we could be here Sunday or Monday or Tuesday.

I guess I'm worried also that some of us don't want to be inconvenienced. Our young people are inconvenienced today who are in the Persian Gulf. They're being shot at and they stand in danger. And with all my heart, I believe the least we could do is postpone this debate to a different day.

But I know I've lost that debate, and the decision has been made. We are here. Let me address the way this is being done. But before I do that, I want to say something else.

The events of the last days sadden me. We are now at the height of a cycle of the politics of negative attacks, character assassination, personal smears of good people, decent people, worthy people. It's no wonder to me and to you that the people of our country are cynical and indifferent and apathetic about our government and about our country. The politics of smear and slash and burn must end.

This House and this country must be based on certain basic values: respect, trust, fairness, forgiveness.

We can take an important step today back to the politics of respect and trust and fairness and forgiveness.

Let me talk about the way we are doing this and how that can be that first step.

We have articles of impeachment on the floor of this house. This is the most radical act that is called for in our Constitution. In this debate, we are being denied a vote as an alternative to impeachment for censure and condemnation of our president for the wrongful acts that we believe have been performed.

We all say that this is a vote of conscience. You get to vote your vote of conscience, and I respect that right. All we're asking for is that we get to vote our conscience.

And it's not just our conscience. It's the conscience of millions of Americans who share this view. I know what you say, you say that the Constitution does not allow this vote of censure.

Constitutional scholars in the hundreds, some of the most respected conservative constitutional scholars have opined in the days before in the committee and through articles and through speeches that in their view the Constitution does allow this vote; that the Constitution is silent on this question of what else we can do; that the Constitution in no way prevents us from doing this.

What do I conclude? I can only conclude that you don't want our members to have this choice. I can only conclude that some are afraid of this vote. I can only conclude that this may be about winning a vote, not about high-minded ideals.

Let me, if I can, go back to the values - respect, fairness, trust, forgiveness. We need today to begin, in the way we do this, to practice a different kind of politics.

We need to stand today as a unified body, Republicans and Democrats, liberals, moderates, conservatives, rejecting raw, naked partisanship and putting in its place a politics of trust and respect and decency and values.

We need to turn away from extremism and inquisition and return to a sense of moderation in our political system. We are considering articles of impeachment that allege an abuse of power. We have an obligation not to abuse our power.

We need to turn back - we have another chance - the chance is still there - before our nation and our democracy have become an inalterably and permanently degraded and lowered.

The great judge Learned Hand once said that no court can save a society so riven that the spirit of moderation is gone. Today, I believe the majority is pursuing a path of immoderation, disregarding even a consideration of the wishes of a vast majority of the American people regarding penalizing this president with censure and not impeachment.

In the book of Isaiah in the Bible it was said ''judgment is turned away backward and justice stands far off.'' I ask the majority one last time to reconsider what you are doing.

We are deeply offended in all sincerity from my heart - we are deeply offended by the unfairness of this process. You are asking us to consider the most important act the Constitution calls on us to do. We are considering overturning the free choice and vote of over almost 50 million Americans. We are considering the most radical act our Constitution allows. We are considering changing the balance of power and the proportionality of the branches of our government.

You are doing this in a way that denies millions of Americans the trust and respect for our views that we afford to you and that we feel we deserve and our Constitution guarantees. In your effort to uphold the Constitution, you are trampling the Constitution.

In Lincoln's Gettysburg Address he prayed this prayer, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from this earth.

I pray today that you will open up this people's House and let the people's voice come in and let fairness reign.

Thank you

[auburnblu]

1. Good point by Gephardt

Though his quoting from Isaiah will probably rile up the anti-faith crowd.

[Cocoa]

3. the references to the troops probably turned some off

I don't really care for either rhetorical device, but the larger point is the important thing.

It's so odd to me how much perspective can be gained by looking back just a few years, especially compared to how little it's done. It's like there's a blackout on recent history.

[Lefty48197]

2. Typical Gephardt

always fighting for what is right, regardless of the circumstances. Soldier on Dick.

[xchrom]

4. they might also look at some

of the publicly stated strategies of say -- newt gingrich, tom delay, etc? why can repukes trumpet to the high heavens their intention for partisanship and the pundits not believe them or the result?
and let's not forget election theft 00

[Cocoa]

5. there's a Gingrich memo out there

outlining the strategy to use certain language when talking about the dems, I think traitor was among the names to call dems.

But there's Bob Schieffer and the others, can't for the life of them figure out what in the name of college football is going on.

[maggrwaggr]

10. this is the site.

http://www.littlepiggy.net/advertising/newt.php

[Touchdown]

6. Oh' no! The dredded PPPR!

Is this the Sheiffer or Russert show? Doesn't really matter, since they're both partly respoinsible for this rancor in the first place. Sheiffer just repeated that "invented the internet" crap a couple of weeks ago.

[Kanary]

7. I'm surprised also.

That it's taken so long for the left to get "rancorous".

Kanary

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. "Journalists" puzzled? No surpise.

Most of them spend more time getting their hair dyed, their teeth whitened, and their wardrobes refurbished then they do looking out of a window rather than in the mirror.

I'll bet they're not puzzled about the latest sexual antics of Madonna, Michael Jackson, Kobe Bryant. The networks, and major papers, seem to have endless time and resources to "investigate" the doings of celebrities or the dangers of various diet fads.

What passes for a "free press" in this country is pathetic. Where are the Woodwards, Bernsteins, Greeley's of today? I suspect there are good journalists out there straining at the leash to bring the truth about BushCorp to the public, but are held in check by timid editors and network executives cowed by their corporate masters.

The supposed "Liberal Media" is a toothless parody of journalism terrified of appearing "biased" if they should tell the truth.

I must confess to little sympathy for Clinton. If he'd had any courage, he would have told the press to try covering the news rather than his private life and refused to answer questions that had nothing to do with his presidency, rather than playing into their hands by trying to weasle out of it. And, he sure as hell should have known that the repugs were going to pounce on every word he uttered in his defense.

Forget the flames, I voted for him both times.

[salin]

9. Lets see... locking nearly half of voting americans out of the legislative

process - and wondering where the anger is coming from?

The use of brute force to get bills through the senate and house... for conference... then locking out the democrats on the conference committee (while both houses of congress are nearly evenly divided - thus nearly half of voting americans are represented by democrats)... working in behind closed doors to completely rewrite the legislation rather than to work from the existing bills to find a compromise (which is how the system is supposed to work)... and while blocking democratic elected congressional folks out of the process - giving carteblanche access to big paying corporations (who in some cases wrote whole pieces of legislation)... then releasing the bill (the omnibus spending bill, the medicare bill, and the energy bill) - to the dems on the conference - thousands of pages to read through/analyze - with the vote scheduled within days - a vote that doesn't matter since they already have the majority on the conference committee.

That is called disenfranchising elected representatives - and by extension most Americans.

And this esteemed bunch is curious about the source of the anger? Geez Loiuse!

[niyad]

11. check out molly ivins' piece in the progressive this month, "call me a

bush-hater":

http://www.progressive.org/nov03/ivin1103.html




Among the more amusing cluckings from the right lately is their appalled discovery that quite a few Americans actually think George W. Bush is a terrible President.

Robert Novak is quoted as saying in all his forty-four years of covering politics, he has never seen anything like the detestation of Bush. Charles Krauthammer managed to write an entire essay on the topic of "Bush-haters" in Time magazine as though he had never before come across a similiar phenomenon.

Oh, I stretch memory way back, so far back, all the way back to--our last President. Almost lost in the mists of time though it is, I not only remember eight years of relentless attacks from Clinton-haters, I also notice they haven't let up yet. Clinton-haters accused the man of murder, rape, drug-running, sexual harassment, financial chicanery, and official misconduct. And they accuse his wife of even worse. For eight long years, this country was a zoo of Clinton-haters. Any idiot with a big mouth and a conspiracy theory could get a hearing on radio talk shows and "Christian" broadcasts and nutty Internet sites. People with transparent motives, people paid by tabloid magazines, people with known mental problems, ancient Clinton enemies with notoriously racist pasts--all were given hearings, credence, and air time. Sliming Clinton was a sure road to fame and fortune on the right, and many an ambitious young rightwing hit man like David Brock, who has since made full confession, took that golden opportunity.

. ,. . . . . . . . .



Sure, all that is just what's happening in people's lives, but what we need is the Big Picture. Well, the Big Picture is that after September 11, we had the sympathy of every nation on Earth. They all signed up, all our old allies volunteered, everybody was with us, and Bush just booted all of that away. Sneering, jeering, bad manners, hideous diplomacy, threats, demands, arrogance, bluster.

"In Afghanistan, Bush rode a popular tide; Iraq, however, was a singular act of Presidential will," says Krauthammer.

You bet your ass it was. We attacked a country that had done nothing to us, had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and turns out not to have weapons of mass destruction.

It is not necessary to hate George W. Bush to think he's a bad President. Grownups can do that, you know. You can decide someone's policies are a miserable failure without lying awake at night consumed with hatred.

Poor Bush is in way over his head, and the country is in bad shape because of his stupid economic policies.

If that makes me a Bush-hater, then sign me up.