"Evenhanded" analysts are wrong about partisanship: It's Bush, conservatives who are "hyperpartisan"

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Who's Hyperpartisan?
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, March 9, 2007; Page A21

Hand-wringing over extreme partisanship has become a popular cause among learned analysts. They operate from Olympian heights and strain for evenhandedness by issuing tut-tuts to all sides, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives.

But the evidence of recent days should settle the case: This administration has operated on the basis of a hyperpartisanship not seen in decades. Worse, the destroy-the-opposition, our-team-vs.-their-team approach has infected large parts of the conservative movement and the Republican Party. That's a shame, since there are plenty of good people in both. Still, the tendency to subordinate principles to win short-term victories and cover up for the administration is, alas, rampant on the right.

Take the rush of conservative organs demanding an immediate pardon of Scooter Libby after his conviction on four counts related to lying and obstruction of justice. Last I checked, conservatives were deeply committed to the rule of law. They said so frequently during the Clinton impeachment saga....In other words, when an impartial judicial system does something that conservatives don't like, the will of conservatives, not the rule of law, should triumph....And only the Marx Brothers could have done justice to the manic us-vs.-them response of administration lieutenants to angry jottings that Vice President Cheney scrawled in the margins of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's op-ed piece attacking administration claims about Iraq....And anyone who doubts that this administration has gone hyperpartisan should take a look at how it pushed out competent, high-performing U.S. attorneys for what in so many cases appear to be political reasons....

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All of which leaves conservatives and Republicans who care about the rule of law with a choice. If they keep going along with this White House's way of doing business, their own cause will continue to suffer long after the president's term is over. Principled conservatives should be the first to want to clean up these stables and end the hyperpartisanship.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/08/AR2007030801501.html?nav=hcmodule

[SteveM]

1. Dionne is right. But mainmedia STILL will not buy it. (n/t)

[bryant69]

2. It's exactly right

And so many even on our side of the fence are so eager to avoid argument that they miss the obvious point that our buddies on the Conservatoid side of the fence are rabid dogs when it comes to partisanship while most Dems are barely toy poodles.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Parisle]

3. Politics doesn't usually get this visceral,...

--- I think the "hyperpartisanship" of the Bush administration underscores the extent to which the administration is simply a shrouded extension of the hardcore, uppermost corporate agenda. Now THOSE guys play for keeps,...