Rahm Emanuel:“The public wants bipartisanship-We just have to try. We don’t have to succeed."

[kpete]

The Gatekeeper
Rahm Emanuel on the job.
by Ryan Lizza March 2, 2009

.................

The stimulus bill was essentially held hostage to the whims of Collins, Snowe, and Specter, but if Al Franken, the apparent winner of the disputed Minnesota Senate race, had been seated in Washington, and if Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, had been regularly available to vote, the White House would have needed only one Republican to pass the measure. “No disrespect to Paul Krugman,” Emanuel went on, “but has he figured out how to seat the Minnesota senator?” (Franken’s victory is the subject of an ongoing court challenge by his opponent, Norm Coleman, which the national Republican Party has been happy to help finance.) “Write a fucking column on how to seat the son of a bitch. I would be fascinated with that column. O.K.?” Emanuel stood up theatrically and gestured toward his seat with open palms. “Anytime they want, they can have it,” he said of those who are critical of his legislative strategies. “I give them my chair.”

His task has been made no easier by Obama’s desire for bipartisanship, which Emanuel argues the press has misunderstood. “The public wants bipartisanship,” he said. “We just have to try. We don’t have to succeed.” Still, he insisted, they have been succeeding. All Obama’s other major accomplishments to date—winning approval for three hundred and fifty billion dollars in additional funding for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expanding S-CHIP, signing an executive order to shutter the detention camp at Guantánamo Bay and a memorandum to increase the fuel efficiency of cars—were supported by at least some Republicans. The G.O.P., Emanuel said, decided that opposing the stimulus “was definitional, and I will make an argument to you, both on political and economic grounds: they will lose. I don’t think the onus is on us. We tried. The story is they failed.”

When Emanuel said this, I noticed that over his left shoulder, on the credenza behind him, was an official-looking name plate, which he said was a birthday present from his two brothers. It read, “Undersecretary for Go Fuck Yourself.”

more at:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/03/02/090302fa_fact_lizza?printable=true

[stray cat]

1. He is absolutely right - the public knows it takes two for bipartisanship

[AtomicKitten]

2. I saw a poll on CNN yesterday showing some 74% of responders think

Obama has been reaching across the aisle and only some 31% think the Republicans have reciprocated.

Yahtzee.

[damonm]

3. This is what I've been saying all along.

This is why bipartisanship is a brilliant political move by Team Obama - the GOP is hosed either way.
If they cooperate, they lose their base, and they're sunk.
If they DON'T, they come across as the Bad Guys, they lose the independents & moderates, and again are sunk.
All Obama has to do is be more inclusive of the Rethugs than Little Lord Pissypants was of the Democrats - that's LAUGHABLY easy, as just saying 2 civil words to them accomplishes that task - and he appears to be the Good Guy Reaching Across The Aisle, which endears him to independents & moderates, who HATE partisan squabbling.
And when the GOP obstructs itself into losing 2-3 more seats in the Senate next year, then Obama can say "I tried and tried - they seem to prefer party politics over the good of the country",and then bring out the steamroller while the GOP fumes from the back bench - at least until they figure out that they put themselves there.

[avaistheone1]

4. Both parties need to show their working for the American people and not

for the transnational companies who are housed here but don't hire American workers, don't make products here, and frequently don't even pay their taxes to the US Treasury.

How can anyone truly be surprised we have an economic crisis rocking this country to its core?

[BklynChick]

5. bingo.

[Lilith Velkor]

6. Where does he get the idea that the public wants bipartisanship?

I'm not disputing the man, I'm genuinely curious.