History is Happening Now

Do the folks who write editorials for the Wall Street Journal ever talk to the folks who write articles for the Wall Street Journal?

Consider recent reporting/opining about Barack Obama’s $800-billion-plus economic stimulus bill. Here’s how Greg Hitt and Elizabeth Williamson describe it in their article from January 28, 2009:

The economic stimulus package proposed by Democratic House leaders totals $825 billion and includes three broad pieces: a $365.6 billion spending measure for such brick-and-mortar projects as highways and bridges; a $180 billion measure to boost jobless benefits and Medicaid, among other things; and a $275 billion tax-relief package, which includes a plan to give a $500 payroll tax holiday to all workers, a proposal from Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign.

If you pay attention to the arguments that the super-pundits of the right are making in their efforts to defeat this bill, you’d think it was different. Here’s an excerpt from a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal:

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make “dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy.” Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren’t likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President’s new budget director, told Congress a year ago, “even those [public works] that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”

So let’s try to understand. According to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, the following things can “plausibly be considered a growth stimulus”: fixing bridges or other highway projects, broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects. Presumably, all these projects fall under the category of “a $365.6 billion spending measure for such brick-and-mortar projects as highways and bridges,” as reported in the news article. So if you subtract the $70 billion in construction projects mentioned in the editorial from the $365.6 billion in the news article, you get … $295 billion in “such brick-and-mortar projects as highways and bridges.”

Why can the $70 billion mentioned “plausibly be considered a growth stimulus” but the other $295 billion can’t? The editorial doesn’t say.

Also, the editorial refers to the $20 billion in business tax cuts as spending that “can plausibly be considered stimulus,” leaving out at least 90% of “a $275 billion tax-relief package, which includes a plan to give a $500 payroll tax holiday to all workers,” as reported in the article.

Why can $20 billion in business tax cuts “plausibly be considered stimulus,” but more than $250 billion in additional tax cuts cannot? Once again, the editorial doesn’t say. It’s as though the rest of the tax cuts in the bill don’t exist.

The editorial has this to say later on:

Here’s another lu-lu: Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but this is a job creator?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand how it might help the economy if the United States government pumped $600 million into the market for new cars at a time when the American auto industry is on the verge of collapse. And as for the $7 billion for “modernizing federal buildings and facilities,” it’s impossible to fathom how the Wall Street Journal could miss that this project supports jobs: It provides money to employ the people who will be modernizing federal buildings and facilities.

It’s interesting how the editorial uses different terms at different times in order to avoid acknowledging the incoherence of its arguments. For example, the editorial refers to some projects as “arguably worthwhile priorities,” as if the most important criteria we should use to evaluate spending items is whether the spending is “worthwhile.” Then, in the next paragraph, it refers to projects that “can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus,” as if the most important issue is not whether a project is “worthwhile,” but whether a project stimulates growth. Then, later on, the editorial asks if a particular project is a “job creator,” as if this is the most important issue.

What if the editorial were forced to be consistent — forced, in other words, to evaluate whether the modernization of federal buildings and facilities is “worthwhile” or “can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus”? I think the answers to these questions would obviously be yes, and the same goes for the plan to spend a measley $600 million on cars.

Here’s another paragraph from the editorial:

We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

In discussing the $1 billion for Amtrak, they abandon altogether the idea that the spending should be “worthwhile” or “stimulus” or a “job creator,” and assert instead that Amtrak shouldn’t get the money because it hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years. Why is it relevant that Amtrak doesn’t turn a profit? The editorial doesn’t say. Then, it mysteriously mentions child-care subsidies and then refuses to make any argument about why it’s notable — an understandable omission, since these subsidies are worthwhile, they do create jobs, they can be considered stimulus, and child care workers generally turn a small profit.

And there’s this bit in the editorial:

Oh, and don’t forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That’s more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush. Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that “No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools.” Horrors: Some money might go to nonunion teachers.

First of all, it’s fascinating to consider the Wall Street Journal’s argument: If you think the intention behind spending $66 billion on education is to help children learn, you’re wrong — and the reason you’re wrong is that the money won’t give students tuition to private schools. Consider how stupid or blinded by ideology you’d have to be to accept this argument as logical. Furthermore, the Wall Street Journal is now suggesting that this $66 billion should be evaluated based on whether it helps kids learn. What about “stimulus?” What about “job creation?” What about “worthwhile priorities?” Why can it “plausibly be considered a growth stimulus” to repair a road or a bridge, but not a school building?

The editorial also includes this:

Another “stimulus” secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all. There’s $81 billion for Medicaid, $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits, $20 billion for food stamps, and $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax. While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.

So now the issue at hand is whether these expenditures “help everyone,” and whether these expenditures are “job creators.” Obviously, by definiton, jobless benefits are not going to be job creators — but isn’t it obvious that expanding benefits to the poor and unemployed will help the economy, as the poor and unemployed are the most likely to spend the money given to them, rather than saving or investing it? Can’t these programs “plausibly be considered growth stimulus?”

As for the idea that the spending should “help everyone,” it’s hard to see how federal money spent repairing a bridge on the west coast will help folks on the east coast, but these projects are apparently acceptable to the Wall Street Journal.

The editorial is so transparently disingenuous and manipulative that it’s hard to understand why such as editorial isn’t embarressing to the newspaper — but then, the Journal’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, probably figures that right-wingers aren’t looking for clarity and logic.

I’m predicting the final vote on Obama’s $800 billion-plus fiscal stimulus bill will be split along party lines, with only a few rogue Republicans in the House and Senate voting to support the bill.

In spite of Obama’s extraordinary efforts to work with the G.O.P. on this legislation, Republicans won’t support the bill for a variety of reasons. As Politico notes:

With most moderates having retired or been defeated, especially among House Republicans, there is little political danger in opposing nearly another trillion dollars in spending at a time when many conservative-leaning voters are weary of government intervention after months of bailouts.

In other words, the moderates — those Republicans who would have been most tempted to support the bill — were replaced with Democrats in the last election.

Furthermore, Republicans understand that in order for their party to return to power anytime soon, Obama must not go down in history as a phenomenally successful president; and this means they cannot hand Obama a massive political victory in the first weeks of his presidency. In his final column for the New York Times, Conservative columnist William Kristol correctly identifies the significance of Obama’s fortunes. He begins by acknowledging (proclaiming?) that a conservative era in American politics that began with Ronald Reagan has ended. Then, he considers whether the new era will be a liberal one:

The answer lies in the hands of one man: the 44th president. If Reagan’s policies had failed, or if he hadn’t been politically successful, the conservative ascendancy would have been nipped in the bud. So with President Obama today. Liberalism’s fate rests to an astonishing degree on his shoulders. If he governs successfully, we’re in a new political era. If not, the country will be open to new conservative alternatives.

I believe Kristol is right: If Obama is seen as a successful president, it will not only empower him to make significant progress in implementing his agenda throughout his eight years in office — it will also set the stage for Democratic dominance of American politics for a generation. Which is not what the uber-conservative Republicans want at all. So they can’t acknowledge that Obama’s plan is good for the country.

Finally, it seems that many conservatives honestly don’t think the stimulus bill will work. Consider the following reporting from Politico:

Obama’s soothing tones Tuesday couldn’t mask his disagreement with Republicans on the need for more tax cuts in the package. That was the first question he took in his meeting on the House side — and Obama brushed it away with a polite, but firm, no thanks.

“Feel free to whack me over the head because I probably will not compromise on that part,” Obama said of Republican opposition to the Democrats’ refundable tax credits, according to two sources in the room.

Finger-pointing aside, that partisan reality gets at why the relationship is fraying: irreconcilable differences.

“It lasted about two days,” quipped Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), when asked if the honeymoon was over.

Why so soon?

Because, he said, conservatives are just “not receptive” to Obama’s agenda.

Yet even Inhofe, a true-believing conservative who represents a state in which Obama lost every county, is unwilling to take after his former colleague.

“He is very likable, he presented himself very well, and he seemed to want to be inclusive,” Inhofe said in a brief interview following Obama’s meeting. “But if the product is anything like we think it’s going to be, it’s not one that is going to be sellable to conservatives.”

In other words, a lot of Republicans will oppose the bill because it’s just not what conservatives want to do. That’s American democracy.

For all of these reasons, Republicans won’t give Obama the “bipartisan” support he is looking for. Nevertheless, the bill will pass — and then Obama’s political fortunes will rise or fall based on how effectively the bill turns our country’s economic frown upside-down. Of course, not long after the bill passes — maybe a few months later, maybe six months later — Republicans will argue that the bill was a dismal failure, and Democrats will argue that the bill was a smashing success. I believe this is basically the debate that will determine whether Congressional Democrats keep their majorities in Congress in 2010.

So lets hope the bill is a success, for the sake of the millions of Americans who will benefit from a strong economy, and for the sake of the millions of Americans who will benefit from another two years of Democratic governance.

So if Obama is doomed to fail in his efforts to win lots of yes votes from both parties on his stimulus bill, what is the point of all his extraordinary ”reaching out” to Republicans? All right, all right, perhaps calling it “extraordinary” is over-the-top. The media uses the word “rare.” As in:

Obama’s trip to Capitol Hill was rare for a sitting president, especially given his decision to meet only with the opposition. He met with Democratic lawmakers earlier this month.

                                                               -  The Washington Post

A week after being sworn into office, Mr. Obama returned to the Capitol for the first of what his advisers said would be frequent visits with members of Congress. Yet it was still a rare event for a president, particularly a Democratic one, to sit down with the entire Republican conference. …

It was far too early to say whether Mr. Obama’s visit to Capitol Hill would attract any more Republican votes for the economic recovery plan that is scheduled to be considered on Wednesday in the House. But officials from both sides said it was the beginning of a dialogue between Congressional Republicans and the White House that did not exist even when George W. Bush was in the Oval Office.

                                                                -  The New York Times

The rare trip by a president to Capitol Hill revealed the urgency in Congress and the White House over a cure for the souring economy

                                                                          –  The Wall Street Journal

So the Washington press corps seems to agree that Obama’s visit with Congressional Republicans was “rare.” It is also worth noting that his visit effectively compelled a number of Republicans to say nice things about him. Consider this from the L.A. Times:

Despite their opposition to the stimulus plan, many House Republicans came away from their meeting with Obama saying the president had impressively laid the groundwork for future cooperation.

“I thought it was a great gesture on his part and it begins a dialogue,” (Rep. Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis) said. “He did a good job starting us off, at least, beginning to talk to one another. And that will help him in the future.”

And this from the New York Times:

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said after the meeting that significant philosophical differences remained between the president and the Republicans, but they also agreed on several fronts. The mere fact of the meeting, he said, was an early sign of a willingness by the White House to solicit input from all sides.

“We both share a sincere belief that we have to have a plan that works, that will revive our economy, create jobs and help preserve jobs in our country,” Mr. Boehner said. “I think our members enjoyed the conversation. I think the president enjoyed the conversation. I look forward to continuing to work with him to improve this package.”         

And this from Politico:

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), one of the House Republicans on Obama’s target list, lavished praise on the president for coming to visit in an interview after the lunch. But she indicated she was still uncertain if she could reward his effort.

“Do we need a stimulus? I believe we do. But do we need to spend the amount that were spending? I’m not convinced of that.”

Rep. Judy Biggert (R-Ill.), asked if any of her colleagues were more inclined to support the stimulus measure after their back and forth with Obama, was more blunt: “I don’t think so.”

Of course, she didn’t want to place the blame at the president’s feet.

“It’s unfortunate that their leadership didn’t negotiate with us,” Biggert said. “The problem is that the process now is too far down the road.”

But, with a twinkle, she said, “he really cares about what he’s doing.”

Obama is “sincere.” He is “laying the groundwork for future cooperation.” He “did a good job” getting them to “talk to one another.” He has a “willingness” to “solicit input from all sides.” He “presented himself very well, and seemed to want to be inclusive.” He “really cares about what he’s doing.”

I don’t know what all this praise means, but it will be interesting to see how many of these same Republicans are willing to support nasty campaign ads against Obama in four years. It may be that Obama is actually setting a new tone in Washington — and setting a new precedent against with all future presidents will be judged in their treatment of members of Congress.

UPDATE: It appears the bill may win at least one Republican Senator’s vote, according to this report from a Politico article released tonight:

Rising above the fray Tuesday — but almost omnipresent — was Obama himself, meeting with rank-and-file House and Senate Republicans and making his case that the floor votes ahead are just the first steps in a larger action plan to address financial regulations, home foreclosures and banks teetering near insolvency.

“His presentation was a tour de force,” New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg told Politico. The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Gregg has been an outspoken critic of the level of new spending in the administration’s plan but said: “I felt much better. … He’s clearly moving forward aggressively on all the different fronts. I was very impressed. If he puts it in the context of an integrated effort, I’d consider it.”

Now why didn’t George W. Bush meet with rank-and-file Democrats and impress them with his “tour de force” presentations about his overall strategy in the War on Terror?

I guess we’ll never know.

Some Republicans want Obama to be a successful president, and others want him to be a failure.

The most important Republican in the success column is Newt Gingrich. This is what he said last month, effectively daring other national leaders of the Republican Party to disagree:

“I think the country is so tired right now of a style of Republican attack politics that has become a caricature of itself, they instinctively go, ‘I’m tired of that,’ ” said Newt Gingrich, a Republican and former speaker of the House. “It’s ineffective against Barack Obama right now. The country is faced with serious problems and is about to have a brand new president. You’d have to be irrational not to want the new president to succeed.”

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and a leading candidate to become the next leader of the Republican National Committee, offered a similar message on his blog. “Where necessary,” Mr. Anuzis wrote, “we should stand for what is right and forcefully be the loyal opposition. But partisan politics in times like these for the sake of politics is not healthy. “

The most important Republican (so far) who wants to see failure is Rush Limbaugh. Here is what he recently said in comments that were clearly intended to criticize Gingrich, Anuzis, and others like them:

On his radio show last week, Rush Limbaugh railed against “people on our side of the aisle who have caved and who say, ‘Well, I hope he succeeds. We have to give him a chance.’”

“Why?” Limbaugh demanded. “They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. Before he was inaugurated, the search-and-destroy mission had begun. I’m not talking about search-and-destroy, but I’ve been listening to Barack Obama for a year and a half. I know what his politics are. I know what his plans are, as he has stated them. I don’t want them to succeed.”

It’s noteworthy, I think, that Limbaugh’s first argument for wanting to see Obama fail is that so many Americans wanted Bush to fail in January 2001. In other words, Limbaugh sets aside the issue of what is best for the country, and focuses instead on the competition between the parties. (Limbaugh’s attitude is “partisan politics … for the sake of politics,” as Anuzis put it.) This attitude – that anything that’s good for Democrats is bad for Republicans, and what’s best for the country is merely an afterthought – is what enables Gingrich to pretend there is no difference between Obama’s overall success and Obama’s success at making progressive change.

Of course, this country is chock full of Republicans who don’t like the idea of universal health care, who believe it’s dangerous for Barack Obama to speak with our enemies, who think talk about the threat of global warming is a bunch of hoo-haw, and oppose Obama’s efforts to stimulate the economy through government spending. I disagree with these people, but I certainly recognize their right as free people to express their resistance to progressive ideas.

But Obama’s overall goals include keeping the American people safe, rescuing the American economy so people can find work to support themselves and their families, and working to bring about a more peaceful, healthy, prosperous world. After all, Obama’s “politics” — in other words, Obama’s progressive agenda — reflect these overall goals.

In wanting Obama to fail, Limbaugh might as well be saying he hopes Obama fails to keep us safe, fails to help people provide for their families, fails to improve the education of our children, etc. If Obama does fail, it will certainly damage the Democratic Party and help the Republicans. But it will also damage the country.

For some reason, it doesn’t matter that Obama has given every indication that he intends to include Republicans in his governance.

Consider the following from a recent Politico article:

It’s no secret Barack Obama is trying to seduce Republicans these days. But his conservative courting runs much deeper and wider than is publicly known.

Obama has had meetings with his former opponent John McCain, GOP congressional leaders and some of the country’s leading conservative commentators. He’s also honoring McCain and Colin Powell in high-profile pre-inaugural dinners, where Obama is expected to toast the Republicans.

Behind the scenes, Obama and his team are working just as hard, courting prominent Republicans and conservatives through frequent phone calls, e-mails and private sit-downs.

The selection of evangelical pastor Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation and Obama’s dinner with right-of-center writers at George F. Will’s home drew significant buzz. But the transition also has quietly reached out to other prominent figures atop the Southern Baptist Church, Charles Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministry and the Jewish Orthodox Union.

“I think he’s done an extremely good job so far,” said Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), who received a call from the president-elect last week. “On both the quality of his nominees and the contact that he personally or his skeleton staff have had with members on the Hill — I think they’ve done just an exceptional job at that.”

It’s completely relevant that Gingrich is a professional political leader and Limbaugh is a professional radio talk show host. Limbaugh makes money by entertaining and titillating people with his over-the-top condemnation of liberals — he is an “outrage performance artist,” as Lee put it, and a “comedian,” as Keith Olbermann puts it.

Limbaugh’s industry relies upon hatred of Democrats. Even if Limbaugh believed he had a patriotic duty to hope that Obama will succeed in leading the country through the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, Limbaugh’s obligation to his employer, to his business, would compel him to continue casting Obama as the great Satan.

So thanks to Newt Gingrich for being rational, and for offering an alternative to Republicans who are too smart for Limbaugh’s snake oil. Luckily, it seems like Gingrich’s tack is winning some significant support:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who just got back from the Middle East with Joe Biden, was with McCain and the president-elect in Chicago at the post-election meeting and met again with Obama Wednesday for about 45 minutes.

“Once the campaign is over, to govern you have to find consensus and I think he understands that,” said Graham, who will introduce McCain at the tribute dinner Monday. “Ronald Reagan understood the value of personal relationships and I think [Obama] understands that that model offers the best hope of sustaining momentum from the election and achieving legislative success. So far, so good.”

Graham, one of McCain’s closest friends and a frequent campaign trail companion, said much of the good will from his party stems from a patriotic desire to turn the country around.

“A lot of people, including Republicans, want us to get back on our feet because we’re on our knees. And he’s the quarterback, he’s the captain – everybody is pulling for him.”

I want Republican candidates to lose elections — but I do realize that even when they are in the minority, Republicans will influence the course of our nation’s history. I also realize that many Republican voters sincerely want what’s best for this country (even if they have bad ideas about what’s best).

And so even I, a happy Democrat, was flabbergasted when I recently read a blog on Townhall.com written by Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio Secretary of State and one of the leading candidates to be the G.O.P.’s next chairman:

A week ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, mentioned Mr. Obama says his goal is for 80% of these three million jobs to be private-sector. That means, Senator McConnell continued, that 20% would be public-sector, meaning this bill would create 600,000 new federal government jobs. For comparison, Mr. McConnell noted this would be the size of the entire Postal Service workforce.

Once government creates a job, it rarely eliminates it. Government swells by nature, feeding on tax dollars taken away from private citizens and employers until it becomes a bloated, sprawling bureaucracy.

So if Mr. Obama creates 600,000 new government bureaucrats, those jobs should be expected to be kept around permanently, long after this economic crisis is resolved. After all, eliminating those jobs means laying off 600,000 people. Who wants to take responsibility for that?

But most federal employees, that are not political appointees, vote Democrat. Since Washington, DC is the seat of government, whenever new federal bureaucrats are created many live in Maryland and Virginia. In 2008, Virginia went Democrat for the first time since 1964, and Mr. Obama won it by 130,000 votes. Creating 600,000 new jobs might help cement Virginia in the Democrat column, making it harder for Republicans to retake the White House.

So this bill, as currently designed, has serious flaws, some of which convey a partisan advantage. These must be thoroughly discussed and understood, and any major legislation cannot be allowed to benefit one party in what must be a bipartisan solution.

Of course, Blackwell’s policy-based opposition to the creation of 600,000 new federal jobs isn’t surprising – the language of “a bloated, sprawling bureaucracy” and a government “feeding on tax dollars taken away from private citizens” is standard right-wing rhetoric.

(If Republicans could mobilize public support with kind of talk, they would have won the last election — but alas (for them), this attitude toward government seems so outdated and simple-minded in the context of our current financial crisis. Most Americans are willing to take a chance on Obama that he is competant enough to employ 600,000 workers to make important investments in our collective future. They don’t view Obama as “feeding” and “bloated” — they view him as “investing” in our nation’s prosperity.)

But then Blackwell takes a truly awe-inspiring turn for the cynical when he suggests that hiring 600,000 new federal employees will effectively create almost 600,000 more voting Democrats in Virginia or Maryland. In other words, Blackwell is setting aside the question of whether this plan is best for the country, and arguing that Republicans should oppose it because it’s bad for the Republican Party.

For those Americans who care more about the success of the Republican Party than they care about the success of the American economy, Blackwell’s point may be persuasive. But for the rest of us — the vast majority, I would guess — Blackwell’s point is just gross. If these proposed jobs won’t help the economy, then we should obviously oppose them because they will only inflate the federal deficit and put the government in the awkward position of having to eventually fire 600,000 federal employees. And if these jobs will help the economy (and jobs tend to be helpful), then ar argument for opposing them on partisan grounds is offensive. Blackwell might as well argue that this proposal should be criticized because it would make Democrats more popular — and that will do plenty for the Democratic Party in Virginia. 

Blackwell’s post makes the Republican Party look ridiculous (which is fine with me) — but it also degrades our political discourse, appealing to a sense of paranoia and division. Republicans can forcefully advance Republican arguments without reducing every political issue to a question of which party wins and which party loses. Blackwell’s post may be bad for Republicans, but it’s bad for the country as well.  

Just imagine what would happen if our elected leaders took Blackwell’s advice, and “thoroughly discussed,” perhaps on C-SPAN, the electoral advantage Democrats would supposedly enjoy if the federal government hired another 600,000 employees. Imagine if Republican Congressmen and Senators made floor speeches arguing that “any major legislation cannot be allowed to benefit one party in what must be a bipartisan solution.”

It would be disgusting. It would send a signal to the American people that these politicians are concerned, first and foremost, with keeping their jobs — and only secondarily concerned with doing their jobs.

It may sound cheap when politicians go on television and say things like, “this isn’t about Democrat versus Republican,” or “we have to get beyond partisanship and focus on doing what’s right for the American people.” It sounds cheap because it’s difficult sometimes to imagine a politician advocating the opposite view.

Thank you, Mr. Blackwell, for demonstrating the attitude these politicians are rejecting when they say such things.