Regular commenter Ahab, in an e-mail, says:
Lieberman deciding not to investigate the Bush administration on Katrina...shows the flaw in the pining for "bipartisanship" by the David Broders of the world. Only in a system with antagonistic elements can we hope to check corruption and incompetence. Whether there was a quid pro quo between Bush and Lieberman on this matter or whether Lieberman is manifesting his own confused notions here about what's best for the country, the truth will not see the light of day under this sort of "bipartisan" decision. Hence no lessons will be drawn from the massive Bush administration failures on Katrina.I think this is right. Lieberman's brand of 'bipartisanship' is a corrupt, self-serving you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours kind of arrangement with the effect (and possibly design) of ensuring that the current power structure goes unchallenged. An antagonistic opposition party is essential if we're to hold anyone accountable.
Happily, with the regrettable exception of Lieberman (CfL-CT), I think we have exactly that.
That said, the value of investigations and hearings and such is limited unless there is at least a modicum of genuine bipartisanship--'genuine bipartisanship' being defined here as people crossing party lines not to suck up to power but to do the right thing. Nixon was forced to resign because enough Republicans participated in good faith to make it clear to everyone that it wasn't just a partisan attack. The Clinton impeachment failed because it was partisan warfare from beginning to end, and everyone who wasn't in the Washington press corps understood that. Antagonistic Democrats in Congress will be able to bring a lot of things to light, but the ultimate accountability moment will never happen without the participation of some principled (or scared--that works too) Republicans.
So I think there's bad bipartisanship and good bipartisanship. An example of the latter is the Senate vote on earmarks. A handful of Democrats (including Lieberman) joined Republicans to pass a much tougher version of earmark reform than the Democratic leadership had embraced. I generally respect Harry Reid, and I'm an advocate of party discipline, but in this particular case it's a good thing that both failed; I'm skeptical of bipartisanship, or things called 'bipartisanship', but in this case it happened to be a positive thing.
That certainly doesn't vindicate the Broderites, whose insipid notion of 'bipartisanship' has no correlation to anything in the real world. It does suggest that even when we are the majority party, there are limits to the value of partisanship.
[That's all, folks]
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