Top News Story of 2009: Failure of Bipartisanship

In the year of review in American politics, 2009's top story is the political divide, or what some describe as the failure of bipartisanship.

Few analysts will pick the political divide, the failure of bipartisanship, as 2009's top story. Many will opt for the ongoing economic recession. Many will pick the health care debate. Others who analyze the 2009 year in review will point to plans for a troop surge in Afghanistan, among various foreign affairs. Still others will state that the simple fact of Barack Obama's historic inauguration is the top story.

To pick the political divide as 2009's top story is somewhat nuanced, because this features the overall political process, rather than the specific political results. Still, the importance of the failure of bipartisanship is that it's the common thread that runs through all of those other top stories.

Some observers will ask, what's the difference between the modern political divide and the historic political divide? Are today's Democrats and Republicans any more politically divided than were, say, the founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton? President Obama and his backers may feel frustrated and deterred, but is this any more intense than when President Franklin Roosevelt tried to stack the Supreme Court because he felt foes were stalling the New Deal? And the political divide of 2009, the failure of bipartisanship, didn't shut down the government in the same manner as that big Gingrich-Clinton battle of the 1990s.

Still, there are reasons for seeing the modern political divide as unique, to the point of selecting the failure of bipartisanship as 2009's top story. First, with technology, political strategies (and thus political fighting) have become so advanced and precise that Democrats and Republicans become more entrenched. Second, think tanks and media analysts are more abundant than ever and they have more venues: Fox News vs. MSNBC is just the tipping point. Third, few of our elected representatives socialize across the aisle any longer, as was demonstrated for example by President Ronald Reagan and Democratic leader Tip O'Neill during the 1980s. (Or, consider the departed "liberal lion" Ted Kennedy and several Republican colleagues, including John McCain.)

This author, as a progressive, tends to view the Republicans as the more recalcitrant group in creating the political divide. President Obama seems far more reasonable than Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has one of the worst records for falsehoods as verified on politifact.com, the neutral fact-check source operated by the highly respected St. Petersburg Times. But things work both ways. Obama sometimes is not well-served by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most partisan of the Democrats. Republicans on occasion have given technically accurate accounts when their leaders are excluded from insider meetings, or that they aren't allowed time (with staff members) to digest specific legislation.

The answer? Truthfully, with 2010 a mid-term election year, the political divide and the failure of bipartisanship could simply become worse during months to come. If cooperative change is to occur, President Obama will have to continue taking the lead. So far, Obama has shown the patience of Job, or at least of Gandhi, and he now faces progressive and liberal backlash as a result.

Here's how the political divide has influenced what most news analysts will tell us are the top news stories of 2009:

Economic recession. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the economic stimulus, showed the first evidence of the political divide. President Obama and the Democrats could hardly buy a Republican vote, even when they agreed that nearly one-third of the package ($252 billion out of $787 billion) would be the tax cuts that the GOP forever embraces. At the same time, the Democrats shoved the bill down the Republicans' throats by acting inside one month of Obama's inauguration. An economic crisis indeed was in place, but action in March instead of February may have provided for some give-and-take. Maybe not, either, but we'll never know. Now that it's December, doesn't the stimulus package seem that it was somewhat rushed?

Health care reform. Apparently, conservative Democrats will force the party's progressive mainstream to drop not only the public option, but also the concept of extending Medicare to people ages 55-64. This is where the progressives feel they have enacted all the compromises, to the point where activists such as Howard Dean want to scrap the whole deal. However, maybe the Democrats could have made more progress if they had compromised on limiting medical malpractice claims. Anyone who takes a glimpse at daytime television, especially those syndicated fake-judge shows from Judge Judy to Judge Joe, can tell from the commercials that trial lawyers and their aggrieved clients are making bundles. Could a tradeoff exchange pilot programs for a public option and the Medicare extension, in exchange for malpractice controls?

Afghanistan (and Iraq, and Iran, and North Korea, and ....). Perhaps President Obama's big surprise is that he's not the war-and-peace "dove" whom we might have imagined during the 2008 campaign, when one of his driving forces was his original opposition to the Iraq War. Obama's support for 30,000 more troops has his loyalists somewhat befuddled, especially his older Vietnam-era loyalists, which is why we see Bill Moyers interviewing Oliver Stone on PBS. Meanwhile, hawks such as Gingrich and Sarah Palin are issuing praise. As the world turns! So much for the right-wingers who were all aghast when Obama made his important and underrated Cairo speech in June to the Arab world, striving to extend an olive branch and to undercut the perception of the Ugly American.

The Obama Inauguration. Remember way back on January 20, when President Obama and his spouse stepped out of their armored vehicle along the parade route, to the distress of the Secret Service, and walked in the open for several minutes? This was when the historic significance really seemed to hit home. A number of onlookers, live and on television, watched with bated breath, but all was well that ended well. Time has moved forward, even with all the fringe anger demonstrated during the summer's town hall meetings and TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties. The president's protectors still receive a high number of threats on his life, compared to past presidents. Their bravery, along with that of America's soldiers, is to be admired. So, as of the evening of December 15, let's close our list of 2009's top five news stories with a good story.

SOURCES

http://yearinreview.yahoo.com/2009/blog/4

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/personalities/john-boehner/

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/15/health.care.lieberman/index.html?section=cnn_latest

http://www.tarot.com/gallery2/main.php/v/2009-year-in-review/

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200902130023

http://www.manlyrash.com/blog/the-death-of-bipartisanship