Bill Frist is going to deliver a speech to the Heritage Foundation this afternoon on judicial nominations and how the Senate should approach the likely Supreme Court vacancy. According to The Note, which obtained a copy of Frist’s speech, the Senate Majority Leader will emphasize the need for “civility.”
I won’t be on hand for the event, but one wonders if he’s planning to wink while saying this. After all, this is the same Bill Frist who insisted, during a debate over the nuclear option, that Senate Dems want to “assassinate [Bush’s judicial] nominees.” Civility, indeed.
But the whole notion of a Republican congressional leader emphasizing respectful language got me thinking about how difficult it is to even try bipartisanship in the current political atmosphere. It’s not necessarily the case that consensus solutions are out of reach — on the contrary, there are opportunities for compromise on most policy issues — it’s that lawmakers have created an environment in which no one even wants to go to the negotiating table.
Consider what Democrats have been told in just the last seven days.
* Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove accused Sen. Dick Dubrin (D-Ill.), among others, of actually wanting to put American troops in danger. In effect, treason.
* From the floor of the U.S. House, Rep. John Hostettler (R-Ind.) accused Democrats of helping to wage a “long war on Christianity,” which hopes to “eradicate any vestige of our Christian heritage.” He added that Dems “can’t help themselves when it comes to denigrating and demonizing Christians.”
* Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Republican Conference, argued that congressional Dems have engaged in a “growing pattern” of demoralizing American troops. Pryce added that Dems “promote the interests of terror-camp detainees,” and represent the interests of “foreign criminals” and “would-be terrorists.” No one even seems to have noticed this one.
That’s just the last seven days. In recent months, Republicans — office holders, not just bloggers and Fox News talking-heads — have also accused Dems of being racists, misogynists, and anti-Hispanic for blocking various Bush judicial nominees.
Belligerent rhetoric is sometimes part of the game and hashing out political differences isn’t always going to be pleasant. I get that. Name-calling, finger-pointing, base-rallying attacks have been the norm for a long while.
But in all sincerity, I wonder how, exactly, Republicans can expect Dems to come to the negotiating table to work on anything when they’re accusing Dems of being terrorist-sympathizing bigots.
It’s not just that Dems may no longer believe they can work with Republicans towards common solutions; it’s that they may no longer want to. Someone can only be accused of treason so many times before they decide they no longer want to deal with their accuser.