Digby... Bi-partisanship... Pelosi

Digby has written a post entitled: Reaching Across The Aisle

... with your feet planted firmly on your own side.

I am not going to criticize Nancy Pelosi for talking about bipartisanship and reaching across the aisle because, you know, that's politics. It would be churlishly Republican not to say such things in victory.

But actions speak louder than words and I stand by my earlier admonition to the new Democratic majority:

The chattering classes are all abuzz with the notion that now is the time to bind up the nation's wounds and work across the aisle. (I can't help but wonder why they didn't see the need for such rapproachment during the last decade of slash and burn GOP partisanship.) This pattern is well documented. The Republicans will continue to drain the treasury and play out their "movement" experiments and then have the Democrats step up and clean up the messes they make until this is stopped.

[...]

None of that means that there isn't ample room for legislation on which we can all agree. The door should always be open to those who want to negotiate and compromise. But unless the last decade of Republican mendacity, malfeasance and corruption is exposed, the lesson republicans will take from this is that they can promise everything, do anything and the only repurcussions will a couple of years out of power when they can blame the Democrats for their failures. To not require some sort of accountability for this is a very serious moral hazard.

I could be wrong, but the first female Speaker of the House doesn't sound like an indulgent mommy who is inclined to do such things.