Framing the issue

Headline on time.com:

Obama and Republicans Jockey for (Bi)partisan Advantage

The Dean

The day after zero, zilch, nada, no House Republicans crossed the aisle to vote for the stimulus bill*, the Dean of Bi-partisan Beltway Consensus elected to write about...Rod Blagojevich's media strategy.

In trawling around the Internets with respect to this post, I came across this gem from Broder's oeuvre:

If ever a candidacy needed bolstering, it was this one. And based on what she showed against Biden, Palin might be able to deliver some help.

* Not that I blame them.

Bloomberg terminals

An economics analyst, on NPR the other afternoon, noted that unless you have a Bloomberg Terminal -- basically computers that give you financial data, such as the now infamous "TED spread," you can't get most anywhere else -- you're in the dark about the planet's real financial situation.

Mayor Bloomberg, in case you haven't heard, feels he is personally just as indispensable to the City of New York.

Michael Weiner feels differently, and good for him.

So now Mr. Weiner is transforming his candidacy into a full-throated populist crusade against the billionaire Mr. Bloomberg’s proposal for a third term, hurling his thin frame in front a political locomotive roaring down the tracks.

In the process, Mr. Weiner said he had found his voice — and purpose — in the 2009 election for mayor: defending New York City’s ordinary, working people against the self-interested, back-room deals of its most powerful.

He has quickly become the most prominent and relentless of the mayor’s grass-roots opponents, who accuse Mr. Bloomberg and his wealthy friends in the business world of trying to circumvent the will of New York’s voters, who backed term limits twice, in 1993 and 1996.

I'm no fan of term limits. But when a politician supports them right up until the moment his term is up, and then changes his mind then I call him a hypocrite. And when he does it because he claims only he can lead the city through the current crisis -- as Giuliani tried to do in September 2001 -- then he needs to be ridden out of town on a rail.

The most amazing thing about this, and where Weiner could really gain traction, is how Bloomberg's wealthy brethren, such as Ronald Lauder (heir to the Estee Lauder fortune) -- a loud advocate of term limits -- have lined up behind their fellow Brahmin.

Blah-partisan

NPR's Mara Liasson -- she of Fox News fame -- goes out of her way to highlight McCain's supposed maverickiness while impugning Obama's claim to be able to "reach across the aisle."

As usual, bi-partisanship is defined by The Villagers as, well, Joe Lieberman. That is, acting in such a way as to simply piss off your party's leadership and so be popular with the thought-leaders on Sunday morning.

But (and I apologize for not providing a link, 'cause this ain't original thinking on my part, but I can't remember where I saw a discussion of it), isn't leadership -- as opposed to bipartisanship -- not simply being conciliatory to the opposition, but rather persuading members of the other party to agree to your reasonable views? Higher CAFE standards. (Almost) universal health care. Or lower taxes for the rich? Who's bipartisan?

Bi-PARTISANship

Just in time, we have a reminder that for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, "bipartisanship" means only having to hear his whiny little voice.

After three years of litigation, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation agreed on Tuesday to back away from the main part of a controversial regulation limiting public events on the Great Lawn, in the heart of Central Park, to 50,000 people.

The decision to temporarily rescind provisions in the rule — formally put in place, the city said, to protect the lawn, but used in an early form to deny permits to antiwar demonstrators — was hailed by its critics as a victory for the First Amendment and for the public use of public land.

“It’s an enormous victory for New Yorkers and for everyone who comes to New York City, not only for their free-speech rights, but for their rights to public space that belongs to the people,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a lawyer for the Partnership for Civil Justice, a public interest organization that challenged the regulation on behalf of two antiwar groups.

Full enforcement of the rule was temporarily set aside on Tuesday as part of a settlement agreement with the two antiwar groups, the National Council of Arab Americans and the Answer Coalition.

The groups sued the city in Federal District Court in Manhattan after they were denied a permit to hold a demonstration on the lawn days before the Republican National Convention in 2004. While the rule was not formally adopted until December 2005, officials said that the city had had an informal policy of protecting the lawn in place since 1997, when it spent $18.2 million to restore the area.

Wankstock

Three days of love and...well...the music...not so much.