Monday, February 16, 2009

Bi-Partisanship? Or the Same Old Same Old?

Lest anyone think I'm totally besotted by the new Democratic Administration and will blindly endorse any and every move they make…

There IS the case of Mr. Obama's choice of a Republican Senator as Secretary of Commerce.

I'm certain Judd Gregg was a solid candidate, bore adequate credentials for the post, made sense on the surface and had all the appearances of a "reach across the aisle."

But perhaps the Administration would have been better served if they had not tagged a Republican senator from a state with a Democratic governor. Who would then be responsible for naming the senator's replacement.

Even I can see that this looks disingenuous. It's a pretty obvious attempt to appear bi-partisan while making sure the ultimate benefit will be to your own party.

I can just hear the party honchos sitting down with the President and hatching this "win/win" situation.

Unfortunately, nobody won on this one. The Democrats came off looking underhanded and insincere, and the Republicans seized the opportunity to grab hold of this chink in the Administration's armor and tear a pretty sizeable hole in it.

Bad move.

And we're still waiting for someone to make the first GENUINE move toward healing the partisan rift.

3 comments:

Bridgett said...

Good point. Something I hadn't given thought to...

XOXO

Kathy said...

I hadn't thought about this, either. Hmmm. I'm simplistic (and probably naive) but I have to think that working as a team, supporting each other is usually best ... and why is it that we regular Joe(sephine) citizen types can figure that out, but they can't?

TJ said...

Ducking in.... we are GM!
Have been for 4 generations.
We have retired 1/2 and we started a very small business for our son's income and us a partial retirement income.
Sad as we watch and wait..really sad. They closed our building Buick Engineering when we on top of sales. #1 in 2004 and disolved.
Our plant was tore down, we went form 23,000 to 2,500.
Now , trying to make things work...we have to pay a 15% SELF EMPLOYMENT TAX ON TOP OF OUR 15 % RETIREMENT CHECK.
It sucks big! I see nothing coming our way with government....
pay 30% on $55,000. Give us a breakl!
Me again....TJ