Bipartisanship may be breaking out in Senate (or The Gang 14 pimping for lobbyists again)

[Robbien]

WASHINGTON | Despite the controversy over Iraq military policy, President Bush’s plea for bipartisan cooperation on the domestic agenda has a chance of success in the Senate. The reason has less to do with sympathy for the politically weakened chief executive than a dynamic that has gone largely unnoticed among the senators.

. . .

Forty senators showed up on Jan. 9 for the first of a planned series of weekly 8 a.m. breakfasts, designed to provide neutral ground where lawmakers of both parties could meet together rather than caucus separately.

On Wednesday, some 60 top Senate staffers of both parties held a similar breakfast session, aimed at obliterating party lines and fostering personal relationships.

The core group of the Gang of 14 — the self-selected bipartisan caucus that negotiated the compromise on judicial filibusters and averted an explosion in the Senate — has reconstituted itself as a “fire department” ready to douse other blazes.



Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have forged a personal relationship of unusual trust, and already have used it to rescue landmark ethics legislation from threatened defeat and steer it to overwhelming passage.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/16569092.htm

[Demeter]

1. F**K the Gang of 14 AND Bipartisanship!

No more following failed policies in the insane belief that different results will magically occur.

[Kagemusha]

2. Fear of the electorate did more for the ethics bill than friendship.

re: McConnell's part.

[endarkenment]

3. "obliterating party lines "

I'm sorry but I really do not want our Senate Democrats to be "obliterating party lines". In fact I want them to be reinforcing party lines and drawing sharp differences between the corrupt programs and policies of the Republican Party and the progressive programs and policies that the Democratic Party ought to be advancing.

[Robbien]

5. Yeah. Where do they get off saying the voters want bi-partisanship

We said no such thing.

I do not get why the Dems are voluntarily giving up power to GOPers. If they are buying this bi-partisan crap, no wonder we are in the mess we are today.

[peacetalksforall]

4. I'm backing Dems because I want my Constitution back and I want

my vote counted accurately. I believe I need fighters, savers, rescuers. I DON"T WANT ERASERS.

No other group of people as these sitting Republican Senators, COngresspeople, and their staffers have done as much damage to the country as these people have and now we're going to hug them?

These are the people who hid disastrous things in the depths of papers that meant new laws against the citizens and extended voting sessions to kill something good for the citizens. And that's only a sniff at their destruction, mean-spirited, and un-American catastrophes and crimes.

I ask myself why I, a mere citizen, am so angry and these people are hugging.

We have to have progress, but how do you trust them? They deserve NO TRUST.

[On the Road]

6. What I Hope is Happenning

is that instead of the Democrats caving into the Republicans, the Republicans are making concessions to the Democratic majority and the wave of popular sentiment.

[Demeter]

7. We Should Live So Long!

If the GOP could stick to its wrong-headed ways throughout the Great Depression, and the Bush family could service Hitler, what makes you think this generation will have a change of heart?

It ain't gonna happen, so stop holding your breath or fire.

[On the Road]

8. When the Issue is Popular Enough

Republican senators have often compromised or voted for Democratic intitiatives. And the Democratic victory in November has sent shock waves through the whole GOP.

[depakid]

9. Harry Reid is going to keep on selling us out

Wait and see. Just because he's in the majority doesn't mean he's changed his stripes.