Beware of bi: what do Democrats mean when they talk up 'bipartisanship'?(POLITICS)

FOLLOWING the Democrats' failure in 2004 to defeat the president she called "incompetent" and "dangerous," minority leader Nancy Pelosi sought advice on how to end the GOP leadership's "freak show." She reportedly asked a group of marketers, "If you are number two and want to be number one, what do you do?" As recounted in the New York Times, "their suggestion ... was to 'take down' the president; it was not enough to simply kick him in the shins." The loving grandmother explained that she looked forward to restoring civility and open debate once Democrats were back in control, "but first you have to drain the swamp."

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So soon-to-be Speaker Pelosi resolved to attack and obstruct. She was rewarded by voters this November, and is now dispensing advice of her own: Republicans should be bipartisan by supporting the new majority's agenda. What she has in mind is the "bipartisanship" of the good old days, when nice Bob Michel--the longtime GOP House minority leader--led an impotent caucus that got along by going along.

Although Washington lore faults congressional Republicans for ushering in an era of poisonous partisanship, Pelosi's plan to recapture the House meant a ban on any bipartisanship. She enforced a party loyalty that had House Democrats deliver "the most unified voting record in 50 years," according to the Washington Post. In 2005, her caucus voted along strict party lines 88 percent of the time. In 1997, 51 House Democrats supported a Republican budget that significantly reduced domestic spending. Last year, there wasn't a single Democratic vote for a five-year GOP budget plan with far more modest reductions.

Veterans of Bob Michel's caucus marvel at the nostalgia for an allegedly peaceful past, when comity and cooperation reigned on Capitol Hill. "It's like someone longing for the Deep South of the 1950s, when everyone supposedly got along just fine," says one seasoned GOP aide. "They were perfectly happy, because they could do anything they wanted and we couldn't do anything about it," the aide explains. Republicans repeatedly complained about the majority's abuses that permitted committee chairmen to block popular reforms, prevented GOP amendments to bills, and stifled debate on the floor. Michel called the Democrats' modus operandi "legislating by censorship."

Republicans complained repeatedly, but saw little chance of changing the correlation of forces until Newt Gingrich came along. Gingrich had a vision that Michel couldn't imagine. When Michel announced his retirement in October 1993--after 38 conciliatory years in Congress--he said, "In the House, while we're still in the minority where I've always been, we're pulling together and making the most of our numbers. And even though I believe the prospects are excellent for our winning big in the House next year, I'm not sure it will be enough to make me the Speaker." The combative Gingrich succeeded him as minority leader--and promptly became Speaker.

The celebrated "bipartisanship" of the GOP's wilderness years was typically due to a few rogue Republicans who voted with the Democratic majority. For example, the late congressman Hamilton Fish was the principal Republican sponsor of the 1991 "bipartisan" Civil Rights Act. Fish declined to run for reelection in 1994 because of poor health, and spent his entire 25-year congressional career serving happily in the minority. He once explained that he "was better suited to the less confrontational, more pragmatic political style of a minority leader. I'm not a confrontational person, so I don't know if I would have been a more successful person as a member of the majority. I doubt it."