[Mb-civic] Tyrannosaurus Ted? - Ruth Marcus - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Tyrannosaurus Ted?
Let's Hope That Bipartisanship Is Not Extinct
<>
By Ruth Marcus
The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 25, 2006; A23

Look, there's Ted Kennedy, shoulder-to-shoulder with John McCain, 
Republican presidential front-runner, just after the collapse of the 
immigration deal the pair had brokered. And there he is, again, right 
behind a beaming Mitt Romney -- Kennedy's '94 Senate opponent, 
Massachusetts governor and, yes, 2008 Republican presidential wannabe -- 
as Romney signs a health care bill.

What, you may ask, is wrong with these pictures? The icon of Democratic 
liberalism, the Republicans' favorite fundraising device (just mention 
"Teddy" and a torrent of direct-mail dollars gushes forth) -- what's he 
up to -- consorting with the opposition and helping its presidential 
prospects?

The answer is that he's up to nothing more than Kennedy business as 
usual. In the public consciousness, Kennedy's persona may be that of the 
unflinching liberal warrior, champion of government-based solutions and 
red-faced berator of Republican nominees. And he is, when that's called 
for (and, at times, when it's not).

But this Kennedy caricature is misleading because it is incomplete. Into 
his fifth decade in the Senate, he is a dogged, pragmatic practitioner 
of the legislative arts. Kennedy-McCain on immigration, Kennedy-Romney 
on health care (the Massachusetts senator worked behind the scenes to 
get the necessary federal go-ahead and also as an emissary to hostile 
state Democrats leery of giving Romney a big win) -- these aren't 
aberrations but simply the most recent examples of Kennedy cross-party 
collaboration.

Which raises the most interesting and unexpected question about Ted 
Kennedy: Is he a political dinosaur? Not in the usual way that issue 
comes up -- that his brand of unabashed liberalism is outmoded in a "big 
government is over" age -- but in the sense of whether Kennedy-style 
legislating is outmoded in an age of smackdown partisan politics. In 
short, unlikely as this sounds: Is Ted Kennedy a starry-eyed naif?

These are, if not in those exact words, awfully close to the current 
Washington whispers. He doesn't understand the way things work these 
days , you'll hear. You can't cooperate with these guys the way he's 
used to doing. You work with them and they'll just roll you in 
conference, or trot out the 30-second spots against you. Or both.

Look what happened to Kennedy -- so the argument goes -- when he teamed 
with President Bush to pass the No Child Left Behind Act: The president 
failed to deliver the promised funding. It happened again when Kennedy 
began working with Republicans to craft a Medicare prescription drug 
bill, only to see it hijacked in conference, when it was too late to 
stop it. Fool Kennedy once, these Democrats say, shame on Republicans. 
Fool him three times, shame on us.

Among the advocates of this view is New York Sen. Charles Schumer, who 
contends, privately, that Kennedy is unaccustomed to operating in a 
world in which Republicans control the White House, House and Senate and 
hasn't adjusted his tactics accordingly. Bipartisanship has thus become 
a quaint luxury that Democrats can't afford, at least not right now, at 
least not on the big-ticket items.

"There's bipartisanship and there's stupidity," one Senate Democratic 
aide says of the immigration stalemate. The aide pointed to the prospect 
of substantively and politically damaging amendments on the floor, along 
with an intolerable measure emerging from conference in October, facing 
Democrats with an unpalatable preelection choice. "We've seen this play 
before."

It's easy to understand this point of view, even sympathize with it, but 
it's wrong, I think, in the particular and immediate matter of 
immigration reform. If Democrats right now are more interested in 
regaining a majority, any majority, than in taking risks to achieve 
substantive results, that's understandable, if not laudable. And if they 
don't trust Republican assurances -- well, history offers ample basis 
for wariness.

But what is the point, really, of being in Congress if you're not there 
to at least try to get something done? If you think it's too dangerous 
to go to conference because you're frightened of the results, then what, 
exactly, have you been elected to do? Between the antics of the leaders 
on both sides -- You're wrong. No, you are. Well, you started it. -- and 
the prospect of crafting a legislative compromise, put me down in 
Kennedy's column.

Consider just one day's elevating e-mail barrage on immigration: 10:04 
a.m., "Frist Denounces Minority Leader's Efforts to Gag Debate on 
Immigration Reform"; 12:29 p.m., "Reid and Pelosi: Spin Doesn't Change 
the Mean-Spirited House Republican Immigration Bill"; 3:59 p.m., DNC, 
"The Republican Party Stood in the Way of Comprehensive Immigration 
Reform." This is not the work of grown-ups.

Kennedy is "a throwback," says one longtime Democratic strategist who 
uses the term admiringly (and who has never worked for the senator). "He 
grew up in an era when you tried to get things done. Now we try not to 
get things done, on the theory that somewhere down the line, if we take 
over, we'll be able to get things done."

Except, of course, when Republicans, with the tables turned, stop them. 
If Kennedy is a dinosaur, we should all -- Republicans and Democrats 
alike -- lament the arrival of a new political ice age in which the 
ability to legislate is frozen and bipartisanship extinct.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/24/AR2006042401398.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060425/9cf7fbe2/attachment-0001.htm