Chafee On Losing, Credibility And Common Ground
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, General Politics, History
Lincoln provides a glimpse behind the scenes into what the Bush administration was really about all along, and how that worked against his chances to win re-election in Rhode Island.
Back in December 2000, after one of the closest elections in our nation’s history, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney was the guest at a weekly lunch meeting of a small group of centrist Republicans. Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and I were honored to have the opportunity to visit with him on the eve of a session of Congress in which, because of Republican defeats, the Senate would be evenly divided at 50-50.As we sat in Senator Specter’s cozy hideaway office and discussed the coming session, I was startled to hear the vice president dismiss suggestions of compromise and instead emphasize an aggressively partisan agenda that included significant tax cuts, the abandonment of international agreements and a muscular, unilateral foreign policy.
I was incredulous. Instead of a new atmosphere of cooperation and civility which, after all, had been the promise of the Bush-Cheney campaign, we seemed ready to return to the poisonous partisanship that marked the Republican-Congress � Clinton White House years.
Aside from Chafee’s thoughts, I’m guessing that this hardline partisan nonsense is probably a big reason why Jim Jeffords switched to being an independent. At the time, it was a huge “eff you and the partisan elephant you rode in on” to the Bush administration.
Here’s the thing. Bush/Cheney came to the White House after the closest election in American history. I think that’s one fact that we sometimes forget because people are still debating whether Bush actually won or just had a better legal team. And so, after all this, Bush/Cheney decide their response to this obvious call for bi-partisanship is to divide, not unite. Now Chafee has confirmed it in no uncertain terms.
People, political karma is a bitch and Bush deserves any bad mojo he’s getting now. He deserves to be a lame duck President for preaching cooperation and practicing the exact opposite. But most of all, he deserves to be remembered as a C-student President when the times demanded A-student leadership.
I just hope people like Lincoln don’t leave politics because of Bush and Cheney. If Congress were filled with guys like him, I think this country would be a much better place.
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 and is filed under Elections, General Politics, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 12th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Sickening, but entirely believable. I too hope that Lincoln Chaffee doesn’t disappear – he’s such a quality pol (and there aren’t all that many of them around these days!)
Karma…. I wonder if the term makes any sense to people like Bush and his cronies. And I doubt that it does, smacking of some other philosophical ethic (not to MENTION religion!) as it does…. I guess they’ll get it when it bites them where it does the most good, ain’t?
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”
-Plato
The new kvetch in town….
November 13th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Plus he LOST the popular vote. So what you say next should be in bolded, blinking 18 point font.
November 13th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
Mr. Gardner; Good job, well stated, excellent point, and all that sort of balderdash…
And a good quote from Plato that was well timed; good one, two punch !
But here comes the media, muckin it all up as usual, gettin down on Pelosi’s decission to back Murtha, some things never change. But that news was hard to figure–why back Murtha when the other guy supposedly has the votes. I guess, like somebody once said, ‘You dance with the guy who brought ya’. Guess there’s some loyalty shown in that decission, maybe some payback too. Politics is crazy, ya know.
Anyway, as for Mr Chafee, maybe Rahm talks to him and he comes to play for his team – you would like that , yes? Or is it better for each side to have a broad spectrum of opinion? Because we have a two partry system, for better or worse, I think it’s probably best that he remain Republican. Now if he can only find a job.