In a New York Times interview about his decision not to run for re-election, Evan Bayh wistfully reminisced about the bipartisanship of his father's era in the Senate:
Mr. Bayh said he was startled at how much the Senate had changed since he arrived in 1998, and even more since his father, Birch Bayh, served in the Senate, from 1963 to 1981.
“This is colored by having observed the Senate in my father’s day,” Mr. Bayh said. “It wasn’t perfect; they had politics back then, too. But there was much more friendship across the aisles, and there was a greater willingness to put politics aside for the welfare of the country. I just don’t see that now.”
Left unmentioned was the fact that the bipartisanship of the period was largely an artifact of the South's long history of racial apartheid and one-party rule. Good times!
(For the record, I think it's incredibly pompous for Bayh to tout his own "willingness to put politics aside for the welfare of the country," a Broderesque statement that falsely equates bipartisanship with on behalf of the greater good. You could just as easily argue that Bayh himself should have put his electoral concerns aside on issues like the estate tax for the welfare of the country. What he fails to acknowledge is that most people in Congress presumably believe that what they are doing is in the best interests of the country. The problem is that people disagree about how to advance those interests.)
In order for Bayh to be top dog, he had to find something to paen.
Posted by: Rob | February 16, 2010 at 10:35 PM
Urine a punning mood, Rob.
Posted by: Howard Craft | February 17, 2010 at 02:54 PM