As Holy Joe Lieberman heads off to work for Jim DeMint at the Heritage Institute or take over AIPAC, we are hearing about "bipartisanship". As we approach the austerity bomb, we will also hear more about "bipartisanship". If the day ends in "y" we will hear about bipartisanship.
Screw bipartisanship. Seriously, in a party system where one party has entered a psychotic fugue state where they believe ratifying a treaty to aid the disabled that merely mirrors existing US law is an assault on home schooling and must be stopped, bipartisanship too often means trying to accommodate the politically insane.
So, screw it. Let's go with pragmatism instead.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/brian-sandoval-nevada-healthcare-act-121212
Brian Sandoval and Butch "Butch" Otter have agreed to implement exchanges and ACA in their states because it will save them money. All the GOP governors who think they will be president in 2016 will block it.
Sandoval and Otter aren't being "bipartisan" they are being pragmatic. They are looking at this bill and determining whether it might help their state. That's it. No talk of "socialism", no talk of death panels, just an examination of whether the law might help.
Governors have often made better presidential candidates because they have to be pragmatic. What's changed is that we have Jindal, Walker and Christie actively screwing over their states in order to appease an ideological extreme within their party.
Pragmatism is perhaps the most inherently American philosophy there is. Americans are a practical people. ACA itself is a pragmatic bill, more about what is possible than what is ideologically preferable.
Traditionally, bipartisanship has meant pragmatism. But with the GOP having lost its marbles, we need to get away from the idea that we just need to "meet in the middle".
We need to do what works.
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