Digby noted yesterday an important observation from a recent New York Times article.
In the Senate, the Democratic leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who lost his re-election bid, delivered a poignant farewell speech that brought him a standing ovation.
“It’s had its challenges, its triumphs, its disappointments,” Mr. Daschle said of his 26-year career in Congress, which included a decade as the Democratic leader. “But everything was worth doing.”
Mr. Daschle is the first Senate party leader in more than half a century to lose a re-election campaign. His emotional talk, in which he also urged his colleagues to find “common ground,” was attended by nearly all of the Senate’s Democrats, who gathered him in their arms and hugged him afterward.
A classy farewell from a classy guy. Daschle didn’t use his final floor speech to rail against the right-wing smear machine that cut his career short; he did the opposite, imploring lawmakers to come together to work towards the common good.
And to help prove the kind of dignity we’re dealing with from modern-day Republicans, it’s important to note they didn’t even have the decency to hear his gracious remarks.
[O]nly a few Republicans showed up, and Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, who broke with Senate tradition to campaign against Mr. Daschle in his home state, South Dakota, did not appear until after Mr. Daschle finished speaking.
The scant Republican showing provoked Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, to speak out. “I don’t know why, why in the closing days, some element of comity, some element of grace, some element of respect for a human being, could not have gotten some of our friends out of their offices,” Mr. Lautenberg said.
Because they don’t care.
Comity and grace require some sense of decency. Republicans care about two things: their right-wing agenda and defeating anyone who stands in the way of pursuing that agenda.
It’s why I’m puzzled when I hear some Dems debate how best to work with Republicans on the Hill. How do you compromise and negotiate in good faith with people whose only goal is to crush you? A group that won’t even come together to listen to a speech about coming together?
It’s like the Cheney-Leahy flap of a couple of months ago. Leahy, in the minority, approached the VP in a friendly way in a social setting. Cheney told him to go f— himself. Likewise, Daschle implores his colleagues to forgo bitterness work cooperatives as Republicans embrace bitterness and boycott Daschle’s farewell. Senate Republicans were delivering to Daschle the same message Cheney gave to Leahy in a far less direct, but equally obvious, fashion.
When Americans are saddened by the coarsening of our political discourse, let’s not forget who tarnished it in the first place. It’s a good thing Bush “changed the tone” in Washington, isn’t it?