Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Warner “wacks” Mourdock with the golden words of reason, but will reason prevail?


Sen. Mark Warner threw off the gloves against GOP Senate hopeful from Indiana, Richard Mourdock, on CNN’s “State of the Union” which also featured the recently ousted Sen. Dick Lugar.[1] After a May 8th defeat at the hands of the self-proclaimed obstructionist, Mourdock, a growing unease that compromise has become a political fossil only appeared to be even more cemented into the historical record of Congress.[2]

On CNN’s “State of the Union,” Warner described Richard Mourdock’s take on bipartisanship as “wacky”, a telling sign that at the very least Warner is concerned about the Senate’s ability to govern with the Mourdock’s of the country taking office in the Senate.

With powerful (i.e. wealthy and connected) backers, a new generation of politicians like Mourdock have repeatedly thrown down the gauntlet of compromise[3], saying in effect, “I have a mindset that says that bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”

For my own part, I can’t imagine any of the best politicians of the not-too-distant past uttering these words in public with such carelessness. Has Mourdock and like-minded folks even read the cliff notes to the Constitution, let alone the Constitution itself?

If they had, they would clearly see that compromise is the little engine that could[4] and without it, government is thrown into an intractable impasse that undermines the very system of our government in the U.S. Perhaps this is the point…

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