Screw It, Let's Go Get A Burger

Josh Marshall tosses in the towel on this whole bipartisanship garbage.

So John McCain says that Obama needs to work on bipartisanship, which is about par for the course from McCain and for other Republicans these days. I just heard a reporter on MSNBC say that the Republicans have emerged from this battle with their reputation for fiscal discipline strengthened while Obama has had his reputation for bipartisanship tarnished.

Josh, compadre, two things:

1. Fifteen years ago a generation of reporters made their bones off the backs of making Bill Clinton's life miserable. Clinton played the bipartisanship card, the GOP kicked him square in the balls, and the Village chimed in at the right times and pointed and laughed. Since then they've been the cool kids. They stick with what they know, and what they know is the GOP will bend over backwards to utilize them as power brokers.
   
2. And they like being the cool kids. Once you point out the Village doesn't matter, all the cool vanishes. They see Obama's Youtubery and transparency and intertoob useage as a direct threat to their gatekeeper status of What America Is Thinking. They keep telling the masses what they should think, but the masses already read the story in three different places on the 'net this morning and are going "Man, this guy is full of crap."

They hate being left out of the loop.

For my part, I don't think there's any problem with having party line votes where both parties really fundamentally disagree on the policy question at hand. But to the extent that there's a question of who's making an effort to operate in a bipartisan manner, this one is really not even close. Reporters' idea that the entire 'bipartisan' enterprise is Obama's responsibility, as though Republicans, in their depleted state, actually get to dictate the content of bills -- I don't think people buy that. Which is probably why Obama's still really popular and congressional Republicans are extremely unpopular.

You think the Village will catch on that they are backing the losing side? I don't. I think the Village enjoys the fact that they need the GOP as much as the GOP needs the Village. The Democrats? They don't depend on the Village nearly enough.

Better to help the GOP and maintain the power structure of the Village than to help Obama and get bypassed by the net.