Morning Joe 9/12/2011 -- 9/11 and a bipartisanship moment

On Morning Joe today John Meacham, Joe Conason, and, later, Tavis Smiley were the guests on the first segment. Scarborough and co. had to first get the Rich Perry-bashing out of the way and establish Mitt Romney as the valid candidate. Then there was talk about the 9/11 memorial and the bipartisan moment between Bush and Obama. Tavis Smiley ruined Scarborough's bipartisan reverie by saying Bush lied to the American people about WMDs and Iraq. A big argument ensued with Smiley backing off the "lied" comment but maintaining that the Bush administration misled the country. Scarborough rightfully recalled Democrat complicity in the focus on Sadam Hussein and Iraq as a terrorist threat. They all missed the fundamental issues.

First, this President-centered analysis of 9/11 and post 9/11 is misleading in itself. Bush's reactions after 9/11 were motivated by the unknown and information he received from intelligence around the world. Responding to 9/11 is something that everyone can understand, but being in Iraq and Afghanistan ten years later is a systemic failure.

The 9/11 memorial is not about Bush or Obama, but about an attack that many private citizens felt and experienced and responded to in many different ways. The only ones worth mentioning are the ones who actually did the hard work of dealing with the tragedy upclose. If anything, 9/11 speaks to the spirit of the American people, not to bipartisan relations between two Presidents.

Scarborough represents a growing center in politics which desires cooperation in the political realm to get things done -- strong leadership from DC. This center has been shifted far enough in a statist direction to satsify the establishment -- the status quo allows sufficient government intervention so that government can now centrally control if they smartly manage public opinion. The criticism of Obama right now from the center and the Left is that he's hit a lull in management and planning, but, after his speech, the center and left are coming around and pushing Obama forward to take charge and follow through. It's Obama's style to pretend he's responding to what the public desires, and not that pretension is that the public wants government to intervene in the economy even more than they have. It's a game of perception and manipulation -- this adminsitration knows nothing else -- they assume they have to fool the public to get what they want.

Those further to the Left like Smiley want Obama to become more publically radical, pushing the progressive agenda more vigorously, but Obama knows that the "center" is now sufficient to move forward, plus he has to get reelected. With a growing opposition forming among independents, Obama has to be careful that he doesn't push too far Left too fast.

The narrative going forward is that it's time for Republicans and Democrats to work together to further consolidate the center and protect the status quo by investing in the economy, making America competitive with China, making the rich pay their fair share and creating jobs. In the statist world of the political realm, this is no time for radical moves to the Left or the Right, therfore, Perry must be destroyed, along with the Tea Party, then advancements in healthcare and financial regulation and environmental regulation must be protected -- after the next election, more statist advancements can be made, but for now it's about consolidating the center which has shifted further Left despite efforts in the private realm to stop government encroachment.

The center is the new illusion of wise compromise and responsible government action. The center expects to drag the far Left and far Right along, or marginalize them so they are ineffective. 2012 will be an interesting election year.

Even if Republicans have been hypocritical about government spending

It doesn't matter at this point who started what or who is worse at what in government -- the two party battle to assign blame for our current problems is beside the point.

There's a lot of talk in Washington DC right now about the need for bipartisan co-operation, but all this talk is about compromise to enable spending on wasteful government programs and to increase regulations on industry.

Yes, we need bipartisanship, but not to make government bigger, more powerful and more expensive -- we need bipartisanship to reduce the size and power of government and to free up the market so it can work and businesses can grow and hire. This is the point of my two recent posts about liberals -- if they really aren't hardcore statists like they say, then they'll have to prove it by fighting for a free market --and we can't have a free maket unless government is limited.

Both parties have to realize our answers lie in the private sector. I've been beating this drum incessantly here, because I believe we're at a turning point and this time in our country's history is a watershed moment. With Europe heading for disaster and with the rest of the world shaky at best, America has an opportunity to learn from the flaws of socialism, in all its different forms, and reverse course.

It's too bad we don't have leaders who understand the market, the genius of American workers and entrepreneurs and their transformative power. The European anti-capitalist philosophy has brought those countries and America to the realization that something is terribly wrong -- that something wrong is that economic laws have been broken for too long, and delusional spending has finally caught up with the world. The wealth creators have been pillioried and hog-tied by a mountain of regulations -- it's certain to businesses that if something doesn't change, governments will come after them to drain their last bit of wealth. Companies need to know that they are safe within stable rules, and that governments are protecting their rights, not out to steal what they produce.

Once producers are freed to do what they do, and once people are back to work in good paying jobs, we will again be back in that compfortable place where we can concentrate on other values -- but one thing clear going forward is that these values have to be freely chosen, not forced on us from above. The private sector has to be trusted -- we have to trust ourselves, then take on the responsibility that goes with the freedom and trust. It's the only way out, even if it is a cliche.

To all those calling for a disingenuous unity

Roger Pilon at Cato captures the essence of the issue.

Rather than unity, the American people need to make informed choices between two visions.

Progressive definition of bipartisanship

If the opposition to progressivism would chill out and accept enough of the main tenets of progressivism, the progressives would compromise marginally so that the opposition could get some of the things they want -- what these would be are not certain, because I'm not sure anything has been offered except the reward of being seen as enlightened and non-oppositional. Perhaps if a few Republican's voted for healthcare reform, their states would benefit from a little pork thrown their way, and perhaps they could negotiate in terms of how much of healthcare the government controls right now, slowing down the march to single payer.

Actually, Republican cooperation with this Democrat majority congress and a Democrat/progressive president would mean being a part of a progressive agenda. The Democrats have no motivation to allow Republicans to change the basics of their agenda, so if Republicans work with Democrats it would be to help curb the excesses, but the policies would be implemented basically the same as Democrats propose. So, what would that be like?

We would have healthcare reform pretty much along the lines of the House bill, without a public option. The exclusion of the public option would be about all the Republicans could get, because if the Republicans got too many changes, then progressives would buck, but they could all agree on healthcare reform without the public option as long as something similar could replace it to compete with private insurance. The Republicans could possibly get something on abortion to appease their constituents. As long as government's role in affecting prices and delivery of services is significant, they could get a bipartisan bill passed.

The same with cap and trade. The Republicans could lessen the negative effects on businesses and the price consumers pay for energy, but the only way bipartisanship could work is if Democrats get most of their plan implemented.

These two major changes would significantly enhance government's ability to engineer society in the progressive direction. Then, all that representatives would have to worry about is whether the public is happy with these changes. Undoubtedly, there would be Republicans who refuse to help pass the progressive agenda and when they came up for reelection they could run on the fact of their opposition. Their opponents would frame them as obstructionists and claim that the Republican candidate is using "progressive agenda" as a scare tactic and point to the Republicans who voted for healthcare and cap an trade to show how some Republicans didn't think there was anything wrong or nefarious about these policies.

This tactic would either normalize progressivism or it would force voters to consider the question if these new changes in government involvement or wise and desirable. This would force all representatives running in areas where there is opposition to progressive policies to choose between more government involvement in the economy or less. Even Democrats who are in purple states would be conflicted.

It all depends on the national reaction to healthcare reform and cap and trade. The progressives are stating and betting that the public will accept these changes and realize they are necessary. Let's imagine for a minute that bipartisan efforts did take place. This would mean that Republicans are working with Democrats on Obama's ambitious agenda -- much of this agenda would become a reality with Republican cooperation, even if in a less severe or extreme form. The question is if this is what the American people want -- was there a national mandate for the progressive agenda? Before anyone accuses me of trying to demonize Obama's agenda with the word "progressivism", I'm only using his term, and the term used by Democrats who call themselves progressives -- so, let's not try to wiggle out from under the term in order to normalize these proposed changes -- even if it can be shown that Republicans have supported progressive policies in the past, this doesn't change anything.

The question remains, how would the public react to bipartisanship efforts which passed most of the agenda pushed by Obama, Reid and Pelosi? Or does the public's reaction matter?