Reply #37: Republicans have not been bipartisan for years now. [View All]

They only talk bipartisanship when they are in the minority. When they dominated, they were not bipartisan. They filibustered Democratic legislation hundreds of times.

They only talk bipartisan when they want to weaken Democratic legislation.

So I am glad President Obama is also using the term strategically. Talking bipartisan as they have been and then demonstrating how deep the Republicans' devotion to that spirit goes-- he bends to incorporate some Republican ideas like tax-cuts (thankfully favoring the middle-class instead of GOP-preferred tax-cutting for the already wealthy) -- and Republicans vote ZERO for his policies that incorporated some of their dumb ideas.

So glad our president is showing how hollow their talk about bipartisanship really is.

FURTHERMORE

Republicans have long pretended they are "tough on defense" and "fiscally conservative" when in fact, Republican presidents have raised our deficits and Democrats have curbed them. When Republicans perpetrated the ugly war of choice on Iraq that endangered our national security and perpetrated torture which further endangered us and resulted in hundreds of photos and hours of video tape that our friends and enemies around the globe have already seen.

Those GOP lies "fiscally conservative" and "strong on defense" have been exposed. We know, from the Bush Depression, that they are completely false now. Republicans long accused the Democrats of being "tax and spend" liberals. Well Republicans have run "tax-cut and spend" administrations that have preferred to shovel debt onto future administrations.

Yes, I'm old enough to have seen actual bipartisanship. It wasn't GOP blowhards trashing the president every chance they got, getting him to bend and then voting as a block against the compromise legislation. It was actual Republican legislators voting with the Democratic party on particular legislation. And vice versa. It wasn't just talk. It wasn't just posturing or a cheap political stunt.

But the GOP has seized upon the block voting in recent years to look tough. I think they figured that they'd scared the country with the massive war on terror (and left bin Laden at large) so if they acted tough the public would think they were The Strong Party and vote for them. And if they got Democrats to compromise they could smear them as wusses. And retain their title as the Strong Serious Party. That was part of the appeal of their dissing Kerry as a flip flopper. (They also frequently use highly-publicized smearing to deflect attention from their own flaws, like the abundance of hypocrites in the GOP.)

The GOP may also be using their block voting, "Party of No" style to create the impression that they are more powerful than they really are. And with our mass media consolidated into conservative hands over the past couple of decades (http://www.corporations.org/media/) they can do that quite well. With only about 1/4 of the public supporting their positions, they can sure get a lot of air time !