A question

[avevale_intelligencer]

bedlamhouse mentioned in another connection:

"- the (bipartisan) Department of Homeland Security.
- the (bipartisan) Patriot Act
- the (bipartisan) invasion of Afghanistan
- the (bipartisan) invasion of Iraq"

I don't know exactly how the voting went, but from what I do know about the state of Congress certainly leading up to the last midterms, would I be right in thinking that calling them "bipartisan" basically amounts to:

MOMMY: "All right, Tommy, whose idea was it to kick the ball through the window?"

TOMMY (age five): ".......mine." (Pointing at three-year-old baby sister) "But she din't stop me, so that makes it her fault too!"

I'm sure some Democrats voted for these things. I'm equally sure no Democrat originated them. I'm open to correction, though, hence the question.

Comments

[billroper]

The Democrats in Congress were the ones who wanted the Department of Homeland Security originally. Bush initially rejected the idea, then gave up and went along with it.

Here's a by-no-means-pro-Bush source. You'll find the paragraph below about halfway down:

"Less than two months ago, top White House officials dismissed Democratic Party proposals for a new cabinet department for homeland security, calling it, at best, a possibility for the distant future."

[howeird]

There's more to partisan politics than party, as you probably know. The same way not all Protestants back the same ideologies, neither do all Democrats. Thanks to some baggage from the Civil War, most former slave state southerners will not vote Republican, so even today many of the most conservative members of Congress are southern Democrats. They would rather be dead than take campaign money from the party which put Lincoln in office. Seriously. But they vote with the Republicans.

With 435 people in the House and 100 in the Senate, there are almost always votes across party lines one way or the other, so unless a vote is unanimous it is probably bi-partisan.

There's another definition of bi-partisan, though. Every bill has at least one sponsor, most have more co-sponsors. If there are people from both parties listed as sponsors, it's a bi-partisan bill.

[bedlamhouse]

The things I selected were specifically done because they were overwhelmingly supported by both parties. No, they were not unanimous, but more than just a few Democrats voted for them. Especially the Patriot Act, which, as I recall (no time to research exact votes) had no more than 5% dissent in either the House or Senate.

Fear and anger are universal, and gut reactions even more so.