Leaning Left – 10.15.09

By Jim Fitzgerald
Columnist

It was not vicious attacks on each other that made America great. It was not finding fault with each other that made America great. Nor was the greeting of good news with negative and critical comments the kind of behavior that made us a great country. What has happened to us? I doubt that any one of us considers ourselves nasty or hateful but when it comes to politics, we have deteriorated into a bunch of petty, hateful people. When we throw our religious teachings out the window and engage in deceitful, lying behavior, what does that say about the depth of our beliefs?

Olympia Snowe, the Republican Senator from Maine, addressed what should be the political process very eloquently when she said; “I understand politics plays a role in this [political] process, but it should not be to the exclusion of our foremost obligation to the American people, which is to govern. You can’t allow your differences to overtake your ability to solve problems. In a lot of ways, it’s stunning that we’re at a point in America, a time when our elected officials and our political institutions should be rising to the occasion to grapple with the monumental issues of our time, and we can’t muster the political capacity to get it done.” She went on to say, “I understand about winning elections because that is what we do. But it should be a competition of good ideas, not erecting barriers to solving the problems of a great nation.”

Unfortunately, ideology appears to have trumped practical reality. Political parties seem to equate problem solving with “treasonous collaboration,” as one writer put it. To reject the kind of bipartisan solutions that influence legislation simply because the party in power may gain an advantage seems childish. It has been the non-ideological compromises between opposing political parties that has forged this great nation.  The ability to come together and work out our differences has been a hallmark of our greatness. However, rigid ideology now threatens to undermine the very foundation (compromise) that has allowed us to not just achieve greatness but also live together as friends and neighbors. We are looking more and more like a petty third world country.  I think we can do better than this.

Whether the issue is health care reform or clean energy, we need a Congress that steps up to the plate and delivers.  A Congress that moves away from the sharp partisan divide and seeks a way to provide us with a health care system forged from, and reflective of, the best conservative and progressive minds among them. We need politicians that stop paying daily attention to polls and focus their attention on the severe problems that challenge our greatness. We can neither have people dying because of a lack of access to doctors nor spend ourselves into bankruptcy. We cannot demand energy independence and then block every attempt to achieve it. We need bipartisan solutions to these vexing problems and Republicans should be taken to task for refusing to be a part of the solution. To seek to block any Democratic legislation only is dereliction of duty and a betrayal of the trust of the American people. We are in a competition but it is a competition of ideas; not an all-out war on any view that disagrees with ours.  I hope that we elect more politicians like Senator Snowe because the future of our country depends on it.