After months in which the mainstream press bemoaned the excessive partisanship in Washington, there were a couple of strikingly bipartisan votes in the House last week. Funny thing, though: This new spirit of bipartisanship went utterly unappreciated.
In one instance, Michigan's John Dingell, the senior Democrat in the House, made common cause with supposed uber-partisan Republican Tom DeLay of Texas to pass a gun-control measure that was less strict than the Senate's and, hence, deeply disappointing to the White House, not to mention all the gun-controllers in the media. Dingell brought along with him a substantial contingent of 45 Democrats who joined with 173 Republicans in passing the bill -- which is about as bipartisan as it gets these days.
A second instance: 45 Democrats also joined 203 Republicans to pass the Ten Commandments Defense Act, which restores to the states the freedom to post the Ten Commandments in government buildings, including schools. (The bill, by the way, was a small victory for the Gary Bauer campaign. Bauer had worked last year on crafting the measure with its sponsor, Republican Robert Aderholt of Alabama.) But again, there was negligible praise for the spirit of comity that saw so many Democrats crossing the aisle.
All of this is something to bear in mind the next time you hear a lament about the "death of bipartisanship." Apparently "real" bipartisanship is when House Republicans join the "Democratic" side, not when Democrats cross over.
The debate on the Ten Commandments bill also led to the solecism of the year: Democrat Nita Lowey of New York opposed it because, she said, "I cannot super-impose my views on other people" -- something, THE SCRAPBOOK suspects, that only superliberals worry about.