Since when is to make common cause with some folks on the other side of the aisle who can help us get out of Iraq and stay out of Iran considered bipartisanship? Bipartisanship implies cooperation of the two parties as equals. The above is to implies what almost be considered a breakaway faction of the Republican party.

One other thought:
When someone is stepping off a cliff compromise isn’t stepping off the cliff with them.

Jack

Perhaps battered women should also do more to make common cause with moderate wife beaters who can help end the abuse.

I recall hearing someone describe (I think it was) Menachem Begin years ago as the sort of a guy who would throw a ten foot rope to a man drowning twenty feet from shore, then excuse himself by saying he had "tried to meet him halfway."

As long as the Republicans persist in putting party before country and power ahead of principle, there can be no compromise. They have been able to do so because the Democrats have repeatedly rolled over for them. As long as they are able to get what they want without compromising, they will. The prerequisite for bipartisanship is a Democratic party that's willing to steadfastly stand it's ground on core issues and yield only after extracting significant concessions from the other side of the aisle.

Your words: "to find a way."

Anon wrote: "There is a way."

Someone, somewhere has information - and needs "to find a way" to bring it to light.

And the rest of us have got to "find a way" - to alert the States to the fact that the "federal government" of which they are a part is leading them/us into "the heart of darkness." That the States, severally and jointly, need to press the federal government into complying with the constitution. ("the way," as Anon suggests)

I'm no expert here. I am simply trying, as one lone citizen, "to find a way."

*******

"The Project for Constitutional Compliance"

See: http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/therap

Yet again, we see an example of a Washington insider who just doesn't get the fact that there has been a paradigm shift in American politics in the past decade. Despite the fact that one party has demonstrated frighteningly totalitarian impulses, re-written the rules, broken the law and ignored the Constitution, they demand we abide by Marquess of Queensbury rules! This is a bare-knuckled brawl, started by ultra-rightwing militants over the fate of our democracy, yet somehow, acknowledging the fact is comnsidered gauche.

In a discussion I once defined revolution as the moment when the old rules cease to reflect the realities of power - all the shouting and shooting are merely the aftershocks as the old power structures are brought into line with the new distribution of power, but the true revolution was already complete. A revolution in American politics has already occurred, but the chattering classes, married to the old centers of power, persist in honoring increasingly anachronistic conventions and sink ever more into irrelevance.

Do you really want us to take you seriously when you drag out the "Ralph caused Gore to lose the election" argument again?

Every time you post something on this site you manage to twist the facts (and reveal your fears) so that the only possible choice is your preferred one of a neo-liberal muscular foreign policy instead of a neo-con one.

The US can destroy any spot on the planet it wishes. What it can't do is impose its will on the local population. The age of gunboat diplomacy is over. Come up with something else.

--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape

Man, much of the same-old-same-old "Republicans are evil" replies we've come to expect.

Democrats don't win elections if they don't make efforts to appeal to people who vote Republican (for a lot of reasons, but mostly because of a lack of party discipline brought about because most people follow their ideology first, party second, while GOP voters are the opposite).

Many progressives are making the same arguments the Bush Administration makes in its dealings with North Korea, making a series of pre-conditions to negotiation. At this point, however, many Republicans are looking for cover, and running across a no-man's land in the middle. To meet halfway, Democrats already need to be there. Let's jetison this childish "they need to go halfway first" attitude. That isn't the attitude of leadership.

There are all sorts of things that Democrats and Republicans can agree upon, and partisanship of the sort advocated by many progressives (a sort of Cheneyism on the left) would involve salting the earth in the middle in retaliation for years of hardcore partisanship on the Right.

In the end, partisanship hurts the party, and the ability to move its agenda forward. It makes it more difficult for GOP members to support us. It buys into the hateful elections (thereby discouraging fresh candidates). It shrinks the tent of the party when we can be expanding it to include people who can contribute new and innovative ideas.

We need to stop thinking that every Republican in Dick Cheney or Rick Santorum and acting accordingly.

I think it's to get a cabinet position myself...but I think we're in agreement :-)

That's some pretty tortured logic there, professor. We have to work with moderate Republicans in order to keep the extremists Republicans from starting a war with Iran that will hand them the 2008 election?

That's really the story you're sticking with? Because if most people here wrote something like that and tried to put it up on the site, they would be quietly accused of lunacy.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

when you can find 11 GOP senators that will allow a vote on Reed-Levin, get back to us.

There is a classic Laurel and Hardy sketch.
They are snow bound in Alaska with one can of beans.
Fair is fair, so they split it.
Stan eats one bean, Ollie gulps the plate.
Fair is fair, so they split the remainder.
...
end with scene of cutting the last bean.

When do you suggest that fair is not fair?

"We need to stop thinking that every Republican in Dick Cheney or Rick Santorum and acting accordingly."

When they stop acting like Cheney and Santorum, I will be happy to treat them as something other than party aparatchiks. Until then...

Here is my nightmare.

Fair enough. Here's mine:

A small coterie of Republican lawyers and legislators, financed and encouraged by a right-wing billionaire, find themselves unable to unseat a popular, twice-elected Democratic President through the ballot box, and contrive a trumped-up case for impeachment against him. But they are unable to unseat him. His popularity only increases during this period, yet many Democratic officeholders excoriate him for his personal behavior as much as or more than they do the Republicans who sought to destroy constitutional government through a bogus impeachment.

A Republican candidate for President comes in second in the election, but is handed the White House by the Supreme Court in a monumentally stupid and incoherent decision. Having run as a "compassionate conservative" and promised to be ameliorative, bipartisan and "change the tone in Washington," he governs instead from the far right, in perhaps the single most partisan presidency of the last century, if not ever. Credulous Democrats ask that we "give him a chance." Many do.

With the support of too many such Democrats, he begins an unjust war that is later seen as one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in American history, a war that takes -- in all likelihood -- more than half a million lives, and creates the occasion for vastly greater hatred of (and perhaps, terrorism directed at) the United States.

The Democratic establishment, even after all this, caves in by giving this same President, whose popularity has meantime fallen to near-historic lows, legislation that has the effect of destroying protections of habeas corpus, prohibitions on torture, and constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure--among other outrages.

"He was going to call us weak," they whimper.

Oh.

Wait.

My nightmare already happened.

PS I hated Nader for what he did in 2000, and hate him still. Please don't lump me in with Nader.

This "bipartisanship" is a beltway illusion. The idea that our wise men in DC will craft meaningful "compromises" that make everyone happy is just a pipe dream, and a dangerous one at that.

How about Democrats put forth a reasonably short list of core principles and stick to them? Don't worry about the political calculus of it all. Just state your principles and stand by them.

People don't vote for someone who wants to compromise. They vote for someone who at least pretend to having integrity and core principles. The conservatives understand this, even though their actual values are typically reprehensible. Why don't you?

Frankly, when Cheney engineers a strike on Iran, there's very little you or I or any group of "moderate" Republicans (most of whom talk a good game but unfailingly back the administration when it comes down to a vote) can do to prevent it. All you will do is provide them the political cover.

The FISA vote is a good example of your "bipartisanship". How did that work out?

Gates will not let this plan go forward. Too many spooks got burnt. They have long memories.

The odds we start another illegal war and have Cheney get away with it are not that great as feared, but still of concern. He's past the tipping point and likely to try, how many around him will?

We have reason to believe engagement can still work. Pelosi visits Syria with a bipartisan delegation and the British Marines are freed in Iran. The same Brits ready to flee Basra.

Iran and Syria were the first countries to help us in the wake of 9-11. Their peaceful accord could accelerate new regional growth and provide stabilizing presence to Iraq and Afghanistan.

This time it wasn't "Ralph caused Gore to lose the election" it was Ralph "[sunk] Al Gore's candidacy". Really? Gore stopped running for president at some point prior to the election, and it was Nader's fault?

Next it'll be that Ralph gave Al Gore foot fungus or something as far-fetched.

It is one thing to seek bipartisan cooperation with people on the other side of the aisle who are ready, willing and able to do what is best for the nation. It is quite another to engage in shameful cooperation which comprimises the integrity of our side while gaining little or nothing of benefit for the people of the United States.

It isn't that there are no moderates in the Republican Party, it is that there are no Republicans with any courage or enough integrity to stand up for what is right.

I'm not wanting to engage in namecalling, but this desperate kind of desire for finding common ground with an untrustworthy opposition party seems like something only the frightened or wimpy engage in. I do not find this desire among regular folks out here in the hinterlands. One only hears or reads of Washington types or well placed people who express this desire to regress into the very behavior that allowed the many catastrophes of the past 7 years to occur. One of the top priorities of most regular folks outside of DC is to stop engaging in this sort of behavior entirely: not to find ways to engage in more of it!

The best thing Democrats can and should do from this point forward, not simply on foreign policy but on all subjects is to loudly, forcefully, clearly and consistently denounce the criminal adminstration of the United States Government under the direction of the Republican Party since 2001. Our party should no longer cooperate with or treat these criminals (and that is not hyperbole--it is what they are) as though they continue to be legitimate.

Scorn and disrespect should be heaped upon Bush, Cheney and all those who support them. Only when it becomes clear to all that the Democrats have no intention of providing any cover whatsoever for the Bush crowd or their enablers in the Republican Party will the "moderate" Republicans suddenly and miraculously find the courage to begin engaging in real, responsible, and bipartisan measures for the nation in foreign and/or domestic policy. Unless it is done this way, we will have no leverage to make the Republican moderates do what is right.

Republican moderates, like their Democratic counterparts are less interested in doing what is right than they are in simply preserving their status as members of Congress. Only when their incumbency is threatened will they back up their moderates rhetoric with any bipartisanship. Those Democrats who don't have the stomach or courage to fight hard on the national scene should retire to more genteel and safe venues. We no longer have the luxury of engaging in the sorts of capitulation, compromises and concessions of "bipartisanship" that have nearly bankrupted the nation's treasury, trampled our civil liberties, indebted us nearly forever to China, destroyed our image abroad, and involved us in a disasterous, illegal, and immoral war in the middle east.

"For the record one more time, I am as outraged as anyone about the things that this Administration has done in America's name."

Does that include being outraged about the Iraq War?

But I digress. Let's not re-open an old wound.

The issue is not bipartisanship. Bipartisanship got us into Iraq; it's keeping us in Iraq; it killed habeas corpus; it gave us Roberts and Alito; it delivered Gonzales; last week bipartisanship eroded our right to privacy.

You see where I am heading?

Bipartisanship is the problem. Or more precisely, a desire to be  bipartisan is the problem.

I might settle for bipartisanship when we have leadership. But until then, no deal.

Ps. Here's a solution for your nightmare scenario - impeach Cheney.

Just one more thing about Nader. Please explain how he was responsible for the capture of both houses of congress by the GOP as well as their strength in state and local elections?

That's some powerful mojo he must have. 

--- Policies not Politics
          Daily Landscape

.   .   .   Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton's prestigious Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs   .   .   .   .   Matthew Yglesias

I love Matt -- the deftist, most exquisite sense of irony! 

Anne-Marie,

You set yourself up for defeat in this post. You wrote,

The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran. Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil. That tilts the election. I can imagine a Karl Rove political calculation that would buttress a Cheney-Addington national security calculation, probably with Eliot Abrams' support.

This scenario is one that any Democrat, of any type, and any moderate Republican . . . should be taking seriously and fighting against.

Now, here's the question: why would any Republican fight against a foreign policy that is going to tilt the (presidential) election in favor of the Republicans? This doesn't make any sense.  Republicans want to see Republicans elected President.

No Republican, no matter how moderate, wants the Democrats to win political office. No Republican wants a Democrat in the White House. It's not because of partisanship, it's because there are parties.

Politics is a team sport.

We can keep looking for "common cause" but I'm not sure its there.

Lugar and Warner can talk however much they want, at the end of the day, they side with Bush and Cheney every single time it matters. And over the past six years, that's the best we've gotten.

But make no mistake, there has been bipartisanship in Washington. There was the Military Commissions Act. This new FISA act. The confirmations of Alito and Roberts. The Patriot Act. The authorization for the war in Iraq. The Bankruptcy bill.

So yea, we have had some bipartisanship in Congress. It just sort of makes your stomach turn, though.

It's an old bugbear of mine that Slaughter and co try to act simultaneously as foreign policy advisors and Democratic political consultants.

The two objectives destructively cross-contaminate each other, and your post perfectly illustrates this.

Here is my nightmare. The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran. Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil. That tilts the election. I can imagine a Karl Rove political calculation that would buttress a Cheney-Addington national security calculation, probably with Eliot Abrams' support.

Dean Slaughter, I worry about these things every day as well. But I do not believe merely pointing out the disastrous consequences of an attack on Iran and praising our so-called current policy are an effective way to stop this administration. First, because I believe our "current policy" is actually just a holding pattern, a (literal) interregnum in which the administration emits a few multilateral and statesmanlike noises through its Foggy Bottom front organization as they prepare the next stage in the Long War, organize its timing and lay its propaganda foundation.

But another reason I believe your suggested course will be ineffective is that the Bush administration is a rogue outlaw administration, and will do what it will do regardless of any tepid, emerging bipartisan consensus among experienced scholarly hands and elder statesmen. And as we can see vividly in the current campaign, the bulk of the Republican base, and all save one of the party's Presidential candidates, are still on board with the Bush Armageddon against the Evil Caliphate. If Bush does initiate an attack on Iran, the entire Republican caucus (and a not insignificant component of the Democratic caucus) will immediately rally around him, and use the opportunity to re-launch a vicious propaganda war of jingo denunciation and hatred against administration critics, and soft-on-Islam dissidents. Nobody will hear the measured, temperate and urbane demurrals of the polished foreign policy class in the midst of the martial cacophony.

The only thing that has a slight chance of being effective is to continue to loudly and vigorously drag the Bush administration through the mud, and reduce its reputation and trustworthiness to such a low point in the public estimation that even many of the kneejerk WOT Islamophobes will no longer buy the idiotic, manufactured rationales for violence, and will resist attempts to launch a new war. We must constantly pound away with the message that the Bush administration is an administration of proven liars, illegitimate usurpers of unconstitutional authority and international criminals.

But I fear that we are not where we need to be yet in the war for public hearts and minds. And part of the reason is that centrists, while advocating different WOT tactics, are still supporting too much of the overall Bush narrative. This means far too many Americans are still likely to display the typical, xenophobic, Pavlovian flag and fatherland rally response once the bombs start falling again.

Thus, we are going to have to work more aggressively to undermine the propaganda foundation that is being laid. And we need people who are in a position to exert media influence to join the struggle again the BushCo outlaw bullies, join the truth squad and build public skepticism toward administration's case against Iran. But this will not happen so long as prominent bi-partisan figures are reinforcing the Bush narrative about the ultimate nature of the Iranian "threat", even as they recommend a more measured, diplomatic approach to dealing with it.

It's not enough to point out the potentially disastrous consequences of a war, because that form of criticism only challenges the administration on the tactics for dealing with the problem, and not the narrative framing of the problem itself. The public must be made to understand that, just as in 2002, they are being fed a daily diet of crap by a despicable, antidemocratic, outlaw administration. Bush and Cheney are baking another yellowcake as we speak and write. Rather than reaching across the aisle to compromise with Republicans, and compose documents full of yet more half-and-half Kerryisms, now is the time to challenge Republicans; to confront them forcefully; to chastise them for their cowardice and slavish party loyalty; to disdain them for dishonoring the constitution, and for their willingness to propagate lies; to deplore their failure to attend to their own house and contain their worst elements; and to call on them to take a vigorous and uncompromising stand against the miserable canker on Pennsylvania avenue that is as much a shame to their party as it is to the whole country.

What has taken over our country is really evil, and reaching out to its enablers, whose capacity for effective resistance is half-hearted at best, is no way to fight it. It's Showdown at the OK Corral time. And I think all those people in the sensible middle are going to have to decide whether they want to be remembered as those who held panel discussions, formed working groups and wrote white papers with the enabling moderates of the usurper's party, or whether they are going to pitch in to fight and defeat the bad guys. You personally have a prominent voice, a prominent position and an important forum, and your opposition needs to be louder, clearer and more decisive.

The Bush administration could very well be laying the groundwork for US participation in a massive and violent regional struggle in the Middle East that will determine the fates and blight the futures of the next generation of Americans. Now is not the time for appeasing this administration with half-measures and moderate compromise agendas. There are times that call for loud, clear and unyielding opposition. We should have been louder and shriller in 2002. We should have been louder and shriller in 2004. In both cases, the cooler bi-partisan heads recommended a "moderate" strategy. In both cases, the result was failure - failure to stop these crooks and save lives when we had a chance to do so. I personally feel a sense of responsibility, because even though I opposed the war in email messages to friends and associates, I didn't do enough to get my voice out there and try to influence public opinion.

By the way, my feelings about the seriousness of the present international situation are one of the reasons I have been so bitterly concerned about the fact that in this time of national need, where every possible channel is needed for antiwar voices to influence public opinion, TPM Cafe has seen fit to shut down its foreign policy forum and turn its attentions almost entirely to domestic policy and electoral politics.

I lean toward Max in this debate, at least in so far that the National Security Establishment has done a terrible job confronting its shortcomings, addressing its mistakes, and just generally reflecting on the complete and profound disaster it has walked us into. This includes the "lefty" and "liberal" side of the Establishment, which was complicit with or silent in the face of the terrible policy choices made since 9/11.

So, I find voices even from that side of the Establishment spectrum *profoundly* lacking in credibility. And calls for anything other than a root-and-branch reform of the policies, personnel, and apparatus in Washington to be beside the point. The Establishment is broken and dangerous. Dean Slaughter's prescriptions will not fix it.

(Point of reference: I am a liberal hawk who opposed the Iraq War based on common sense.)

In many ways, there is not a lot of difference between the Democrats in Congress and the Bush administration in Iraq. Yeah, they both shocked and awed, stormed the ramparts and won a couple of battles.

But the object of war, is, or should be, a better peace. If you win the battles, but not the peace, you haven't won anything.

My worst nightmare is that nothing changes, even under the Democrats. I'm not sleeping well, lately.

Yeah, if only the Democrats were in the majority right now, so the Republican minority would have to be in the position of reaching out. 

Boy, we just HAVE to win some elections soon.  

What precisely is Max Sawicky calling for?  The complete overhauling of the National Security Establishment... somewhat less than a cry for an out and out revolution, and a cry which probably needs to be measured against the demonstrable successes and failures of that National Security Establishment.  Ms. Slaughter writes: 

Here is my nightmare. The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran. Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil. That tilts the election.

This isn't one nightmare, but three. 

• The Cheneyites succeed in creating a situation in which Bush does decide to bomb Iran.
• Iran retaliates, as they openly threaten to do, with terrorist attacks against us on U.S. soil.
• That tilts the election.

It seems to me that more bipartisanship has no solution to any of the three.  In the first instance, if he gets the bug in his ear, Bush will go ahead and bomb Iran...his view of the unlimited powers of the Commander in Chief won't send him to Congress for authorization.  If he does go to Congress, (remember the Maine, The Gulf of Tonkin and all that) he will need to craft the bipartisan majority to enforce his will...last time I looked, the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of the Senate were Democrats.  One hopes that having been led into war by fraud once, Congress will have learned something in the interim.

Bipartisanship might have a minor part to play in nightmare two.  But it strikes me that public reaction to a failure to protect us in the "War on Terror" will fall disproportionately on the man in charge and the party so valiantly defending him. 

This leaves nightmare three...that somehow the Cheyneyites euchre us into reelecting a Republican Successor to George Bush.  Well, I guess it could happen.  "Countries deserve the governments they get" isn't my cliché, but I can toss it into this stew appropriately.  The argument seems circular:  to keep a Republican from being elected in 2008, keep the current national security establishment.  Hmmmm but I don't LIKE the current national security establishment, because it enables this Republican President. 

And anyhow...reacting to an "incident" is quite different from creating a new policy.

aMike

A couple more thoughts. First, the Republican presidential candidates are not exactly setting a great model for the kind of aisle crossing you're hoping for. Second, the Democratic candidates are criticizing the administration without reservations, and they are by no means coming off as narrow, partisan, self-interested, or uninterested in a future for America. In fact, they're impressing people.

Third, wouldn't the best way to prevent the nightmare scenario to keep screaming about the irrational drive toward war in Iran? Was won't happen without a much broader base of public support, just as the war in Iraq was based on a mass hysteria and media acquiesence. Without that, instead of energizing the GOP in the 2008 election, they'll scare the you know what out of the electorate. Moreover, if that prediction of mine is wrong, and the public is swayable by Bush, we should be building right now the credibility to object then, or we'll be pictured as  on the side of terrorists 

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

It is sad to see Slaughter buy into the ultraright talking points. It is the extreme rightists on the op-ed pages of the wa po and WSJ that are calling for bipartisanship. But what bipartisanship means today is stay the course in Iraq and aggressive posturing toward Syria and Iran (i.e. actions that could still lead to war against those countries).

She can't be this naive. What other than her own narrow careerism could explain such views. This is part of the corruption that pervades Washington.

I agree with Anne-Marie's hypothetical scenario, and with Reece's demur that Republican's wouldn't try to stop it.

Politics generally has a 'move-to-where-the-power-in-the-moment-is' feeling to it. A substantial-enough number of Democratic Senators and Representatives believed they had to avoid being seen as weak on security issues -- so they gave Cheney / Bush what they wanted on the "Protect America Act". The irony in that title will make future historians (who in all probability will not write of these times in English as their mothertongue) shake with laughter.

There was nothing bipartisan about this. The Democrats behaved in a craven, animal fashion and rolled over to expose their bellies: Please, do whatever you want; just don't hurt me, and it was digusting.

If, somehow, the Cheney / Bush 'administration' engineered a "double-down" conflict with Iran -- in the same way the war with Iran was concocted, fom a pack of lies -- then Congressional Republicans would immediately move en masse to support it, because that's where the political leverage in the moment would appear to be.

A few would stand in splendid and rational opposition, but the overarching majority of the Right -- the GOP, News Corp., the talk radio public vomatorium -- would be up on their hind legs and bellowing for war.

And, the people? Who gives a damn what we think?

I also agree with the argument advanced by Glenn Greenwald, Atrios, and others, that the Washington Village Beltway power structure is really only involved with its own self-interest.

Greenwald made this comment today: "America is plagued by a self-anointed, highly influential, and insular so-called Foreign Policy Community which spans both political parties. They consider themselves Extremely Serious ... [and their analyses are designed to derail away any debate over ] whether the U.S. should continue to act as an imperial force, ruling the world with its superior military power...

"The Foreign Policy Community -- our establishment "scholars" -- were almost unanimously supportive of George Bush's invasion, worked themselves into a lather over Saddam's WMDs and mushroom clouds over U.S. cities, stayed silent in the face of obvious Bush abuses and excesses, embraced the most manipulative and fictitious neoconservative doctrines, and they still continuously issue all sorts of theoretical constructs to justify America's increasingly militaristic and imperial role. " ("The Foreign Policy Community", Salon, 8/8/07)

These Serious Ones, like the media punditry in Washington, are also opportunistic enough to move to where the power appears to be in the moment. Look at the number of noveau-critics of the war -- people who once cheered Cheney / Bush on as if they couldn't shout loudly enough.

Now, when the dirty fucking hippie bloggers have been proven they were right from the beginning, and the Serious Ones more wrong than we could have guessed, we hear these new critics making cautious noises of... disapproval. Not disloyalty -- because the Brookings people do have lunch with the boys from AEI, you know.

That's the only form of 'bipartisanism' known to these people. It seems to be nothing but a comfortable extension of various comfortable University clubs: The Right People, the Serious People, making the decisions.... and in the process, no one loses their careers, incomes, reputations as Serious People.

The Brooking and AEI guys certainly don't lose their homes, their families or lives, in combat or bombing or civil war. They don't sit in 120-degree heat with no potable water, in pain from an infection -- slow to heal, because the local hospital had no alcohol or sterilizer for the forceps they used to pull shrapnel out of their leg from a car bomb.

The Serious Ones wouldn't oppose an escalation, either. It would be 2003-Redux: A tiny amount of counter-melody, against an Oh-So-Serious trumpeting, braying, theme for a wider war.

It would all be about Foreign Policy, after all. A healthy debate -- that's what our democratic institutions are all about. Meanwhile, Iran and America would be at war.

The Iraq 'conflict' -- which a real foreign policy should have prevented -- would widen, possibly further than anyone imagines. America would fully be seen as a nation out of control, a monster -- and when we, its citizens, suffer under natural disasters or terrorist acts or harsher security measures at home, no one will give a damn.

So, with Congress, the Foreign Policy 'Community', and a pundit-driven entertainment media, all involved in a circle-jerk bounded by the District Of Columbia. And, The people, who apparently have no real say or authority to stop the bloodshed, the lies and the pathetic strutting for power that emblemizes the last six years.

And, does anyone think it's an implausible scenario? Cheney, Bush, and the rest of them already lied to create the current war. Bush has screeched at Texas friends during his reported chest-thumping tirade that he will "fix things" so that, whomever the next president is, they "won't be able to get away from [America's] destiny".

I'm not sorry to paint an image with bleak portends; let's face it -- what's to stop them? 'Bipartisan action'?

In the opportunistic little village of Washington, I believe that's a myth -- and if we're depending on that to save the Republic...

the "nightmare scenario" is also just silly and implausible. if Bush ordered an attack on Iran's supposed nuclear facilities (which will turn out to be a golf ball factory or some such crap) it would certainly be accompanied by a complete freeze in allowing Iranian nationals to enter the US. Iran has NO allies, besides Iraq, in the Muslim World. these are the only two Shia nations there are. they won't just magically GROW the ability to launch strikes in the US overnight due to be angry at a misguided bombing decision by Bush. if anything, Bush launching an attack on Iran at this point in history would cement the rest of the country against the Republicans for a good decade or so to come.

Bilmon--great to see you! Where have you been?

Ah well. But seriously, I think you're spot on with that "power in the moment" concept. What I find most infuriating about these calls for bipartisanship is not merely the fact that it never seems to mean having the GOP move one iota in our direction (well, maybe one, like those meaningless window-dressing bills Anne-Marie cites). What is far more infuriating is this highly oblivious assumption that there are rational people in the WH who can be relied on to see the folly of invading Iran, or short of that, at least to see that the country would not support it.

"They'll support it once we've done it," is how they think. "We make the reality," is how they think.

These.

People.

Are.

Radicals.

That's what just refuses to sink into the heads of the Anne-Maries out there. These aren't your daddy's Republicans. They are ideologues. They are radicals. It isn't name-calling to say so, it's the simple fact. They regard themselves as playing out of a whole different rule book. They've said so. They're proud of it. and yet the chinpullers and elder counselors continue to blather on with sage advice pulled from the Official Washington Rule Book they grew up with, totally ignoring the staggeringly obvious fact that these guys burned that book years ago. The day they stole the White House, in fact.

on edit: meant to conclude--the GOP has shown 0 evidence that they would stand up to a war move, whatever phony deals they might have let their Dem colleagues believe they were actually agreeing to. Like they've done, oh, a couple thousand times before so far. "Bipartisanship" is what GOPpers say when they're muscling the Dems into a corner. Charlie Brown; Lucy; football.

Only when it becomes clear to all that the Democrats have no intention of providing any cover whatsoever for the Bush crowd or their enablers in the Republican Party will the "moderate" Republicans suddenly and miraculously find the courage to begin engaging in real, responsible, and bipartisan measures for the nation in foreign and/or domestic policy.

Thank you that is so totally true.  I was thinking about the 2008 Senate campaign in Minnesota.  The incumbent Republican is vulnerable.  He voted for the FISA law.  So what did the "centrist" Democrat do, throw her arms around Senator Coleman and join him to vote like identical twins.  Why throw out Norm when Amy votes exactly like him?  And what does that do to Franken?  Force him further to the right.  It's just lose, lose, lose.  You win and vote like you lost. 

Partisanship hurts the party? Partisanship is the only reason to have more than one party!

But I could make common cause with many Republicans. None of the ones I know want to stay in Iraq or revoke the 4th Amendment. Why do the Democrats in Congress?

The Princeton project is anglophile drivel. It has no military reform component at all, just new verbiage for bi-partisan concession-tending.

You say Democrats need to make common cause with some on the other side of the aisle. Granted. But, let's see who that would be: Alberto GONZALES, John WARNER, anybody in an Admiral suit?

Your promiscuous bi-partisanship and "Hold Harmless" protectionism is just another excuse for partisan corruption and indiscipline.

::JRBehrman

Do you mean the kind of bipartisanship that removed an amendment from the March Iraq War supplemental that would have required congressional approval before any attack on Iran? Is that the kind of reaching across the aisle (to AIPAC) that we need? Because that kind of bipartisanship and compromise and common cause is what makes your nightmares become realities.

P.S. What kind of phrase is "negative security assurances"? Is that what passes for diplomacy in these dark times? "I'm holding a gun to your head, but if you empty your pockets, I won't pull the trigger." If you think threatening to attack a country unless it does as we wish amounts to some kind of foreign policy then you don't need to reach across the aisle. You're on that side of it.

What little I've read of [Dean Slaughter's] has always seemed so mushy and broad that it defeats any attempt to take away a sharp point. Kevin Drum

I wish Drum had spent a little bit of his update in expanding upon this reflection, one that doesn't quite go with the common wisdom that she's a serious player.

Has she ever written anything (excepting technical legal drafts in areas of international business cooperation) that could be thought to be academically serious or intellectually imaginative or politically significant?

She is after all a "dean," and deans (like a certain provost we have known) owe their positions to office (academic) politics and personal relationships. The position does not call for brilliance (a hindrance?) but only a certain brightness.

Those of us, many less well endowed than Dean Slaughter, who have risen to the level of our incompetence -- and you know who you are -- should use that history to recognize a fellow incompetent when we see one and warn away.

Billmon --

Thanks -- that's a high compliment, but I'm not he.

Fair enough. Though as far as I can see, and I don't claim this to be the definitive read of all the comments, she has only been insulted, if she's been insulted at all, because of her ideas, past and present. That seems fair game to me.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

Destor23,

I have to defend Harry Truman here. I know you're not attacking him, but the very idea of capitulation in the guise of bipartisanship would have been anathema to him.

He would NEVER have made the compromises with evil that the "moderate" and other DC Dems have in the past 7 years. He could have reached out and found bipartisam common ground by not integrating the armed forces or by refusing to openly support national health insurance and a long list of other unfinished items on the progressive agenda that he advocated. Read his acceptance speech in 1948 or many of his public statements, let alone his private thoughts about right wingers and Republicans generally.

Truman's bipartisanship was on his terms and not on the terms of the enemy and certainly never on terms that would have brought shame to him or his party.

This is an ignorant comment, as was your previous one.

Meanwhile, Cheney, and Bush, now have new power, new momentum . . . .

That's hard to judge (I doubt they think they do), but clearly, they have absolution -- as does Alberto Gonzalez, who is now freed from future Congressional investigation over his prior false and/or misleading testimony. What hen is going to criticize the fox after he's been placed in charge of the henhouse and especially, when that fox's honesty and probity have been impliedly certified by the rest of the hens who put him there.

I suspect it was Gonzalez' problems which were at the root of the White House's desire to get this bill passed and passed quickly.