Bipartisanship on Capitol Hill, an Epidemic?
What's up with this bipartisanship fad?
Last week it was the Senate majority and minority leaders, Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), playing all nicey nice at the McConnell Center in Louisville. Now we learn that Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) has been cozying up with the very people whose party he tried with all his hyperkinetic will to crush - successfully - in the last election cycle.
Emanuel and a group of Republican House members held their fifth bipartisan dinner Monday night at the Hunan Dynasty restaurant on the House side of Capitol Hill. Eyewitnesses were surprised to see Emanuel, who has long been known as a ruthless (and notoriously foul-mouthed) partisan, imbibing in mixed company. A Republican informant joked, "That's like Frank Perdue attending a PETA dinner."
But Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), who organized the bipartisan dinner group, tells us his GOP colleagues have Rahmbo (as he's known affectionately) pegged all wrong. "He's a great guy," LaHood says of Emanuel, who he calls a "good friend."
Besides Emanuel and LaHood, others in the bipartisan dinner group include GOP Reps. Mike Castle (Del.), Fred Upton (Mich.), Doc Hastings (Wash.), Jo Ann Emerson (Mo.) and Democratic Reps. Xavier Becerra (Calif.), Heath Shuler (N.C.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), Steve Israel (N.Y.) and Michael Arcuri (N.Y.).
"I know a lot of Republicans who don't like Rahm," LaHood says.
And those Republicans give LaHood plenty of flack for hanging out with the enemy.
LaHood says one Republican congressman who he declined to identify saw him leaving one of the bipartisan dinners with Emanuel recently and pull him aside and whispered, "Are you in there with the Devil?" The next day that member said to LaHood, "I think maybe you're growing horns now."
Emanuel just doesn't get the Satan analogy. "It's a completely unfair comparison," he deadpanned. "The devil has never mailed anyone a dead fish in a newspaper."
For the uninitiated, Emanuel is legendary in political circles for once mailing a dead fish to a pollster who had crossed him.
As for LaHood, what does he care if his colleagues harangue him for hanging out with Beelzebub? The 7-term Republican is getting out of what he calls the "rat race" next year to go "live a regular life."
By
Mary Ann Akers
|
October 17, 2007; 4:10 PM ET
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Posted by: Patricia Wilson | October 17, 2007 11:20 PM | Report abuse
Sometimes things or issues get so hot we all have to work together, sometimes we need to work together before going into the kitchen, even though it is already hot in there, because someone else has left the stove on or lit the fuse. Normally one would defuse the heat or put out the fire and so there would not be any need to call the fire department or in this instance the fire departments public relations office.
Posted by: extrapress | October 18, 2007 2:46 PM | Report abuse
Bipartisanship is when everyone works together to reach a single goal, hmm... sounds a lot like communism and it will be if it goes too far. I think that they should only work together for important issues that the public agrees with and wants. If all the representatives work with each other all the time, then it takes away the whole point of having a committee and having diffrent opinions and it wouldn't be fair and it will just end up in a big mess, for example people thinking the government is hypocritic and communist. Some of the representatives need to grow up, I mean "dead fish"? That is like a really bad practical joke for elementary kids.
Posted by: somemongolianguy | October 18, 2007 7:51 PM | Report abuse
The whole Idea has gone to greed and coruption, all the goverment. They no longer represent the people at all, they repersent themselves. Some goverment, I would like to and honest private sector group look into the goverment. And not one of there buddies. WE the People are Mad.
Posted by: Anonymous | October 22, 2007 11:59 AM | Report abuse
This is not bi-partisanship. The Republicans and the Democrats are different wings on the same bird. A vulture picking over the bones of a once great country. Bi-partisanship implies opponents coming together to solve a national problem. In this congress bi-partisanship means Gop & Dems coming together as Republicrats to protect a lobbyist, special interest or take something they do not deserve.
The average joe doesn't care what party is in office. What they care about is honesty and efficiency in solving national problems. A pox on the present government and both political parties.
Posted by: rlbowolick | October 22, 2007 1:19 PM | Report abuse
How do you like the bipartisanship of the NSA-telecommunications domestic Spy bill and its blackhole immunity from public exposure, legal challenge or government or private corporate accountability - to anyone or any democratic (small d) body ? Bipartisanship can mask totalitarianism. Huh !
Posted by: Dick Greenwood | October 22, 2007 2:07 PM | Report abuse
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When in God's green earth are these Congress people going get their heads out of the sand and their hands out of other people's pockets and get down to business fixing this country TOGETHER--like with BIPARTISANSHIP!! They were elected to serve this COUNTRY, not themselves. They shouldn't be pledging their allegiance to the Chief instead of USA. We all need this war to be over, to make things better with our allies and our opponents. The country needs good environmental laws, clean air, water and ground for growing good food, good health care/insurance, good education for all children, laws regulating oil, coal, hydropower, electricity, heat and all various uses of alternate sources for the sbove and numerous other items not listed. None can be done by one person or by one party. Name calling, back stabbing,opposing items because someone else thought of it before you are all more like fifth graders in a squabble over who's going to play ball when there are 5-7 people and you need them all in the first place.
Wake up!! MY high school immigrant students can learn more English in a school year than this group of fools will learn in a lifetime. And they have been in DC for 2-20 TERM!!?? Maybe they should go home PERMANENTLY!!