An Example

The real question at hand is what's the dumbest part of David Broder's column on the Bipartisan Policy Center being spearheaded by Bob Dole, Tom Daschle, George Mitchell, and Howard Baker. My vote is for this:

But beyond the specific policy ideas they may generate, the hope is that the sight of these four diverse characters and strong-minded leaders working together will serve as an example to current senators.

I'm no Senator, but here's my commitment to Broder and to everyone out there in the grant-writing community. If you want to give me "a staff of 20 and a budget of $7 million a year" I will gladly put partisanship aside and reach across the aisle for solutions. Yes, yes, it's true -- I'm that selfless. Specifcally, maybe me, Ezra, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam could all work together on a $7 million a year bipartisan blog operation. We'd each draw a modest $250,000 a year in salary, and deploy the other $6 million on operating expenses for the group including a really, really nice conference room for us to sit down in while we hash out points of consensus and seek to "synthesize the best suggestions on improving port security."

3/9/07 11:53AM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

If you can spare another $250K, I'll join your operation.

Posted by: DAS on March 9, 2007 12:02 PM

Fuck all y'all. I'll undercut you and take the job for only $225,000 a year. But only because I love my country.

Posted by: Petey on March 9, 2007 12:07 PM

"If you can spare another $250K, I'll join your operation."

Now you're starting to cut into the budget for the conference room. Aeron chairs don't grow on trees, y'know.

Posted by: Petey on March 9, 2007 12:09 PM

$250K?! $225K?!

I'd do it for half that. And I can also get a deal on office furniture through a "friend." Granted, we'd have to meet him in an alley, but think of the cost saving!

Posted by: Unholy Moses on March 9, 2007 12:11 PM

"I'd do it for half that."

This is why we need a union. I'm willing to cut back on my expenses to do the job for only $225K, but let's not get caught up in a race to the bottom here.

Posted by: Petey on March 9, 2007 12:16 PM

I'd do it for $150K and work from home so you could turn my office into a game room!

Posted by: Rob on March 9, 2007 12:17 PM

Well, I've got some bad news. I've run the numbers, and after budgeting money for rent, a halfway decent conference room, and a halfway decent chef and kitchen staff, I've run through the entire $6m with no cash leftover to pay for internet access.

Hopefully we'll be able to find a space within a block or two from a Starbucks, because, otherwise, we'll have trouble with the blogging aspect of the job.

Posted by: Petey on March 9, 2007 12:24 PM

And Petey, that's even before you include NBA League Pass in the budget. Can't forget about that.

Posted by: Haggai on March 9, 2007 12:27 PM

Si senor Matt. Muy Bueno with the centrist coalition building. I do for $10.00 hour under table. My cousin he help. He compromise away social security to save it very good. We not get benefits anyway. I work very hard. I have my own pie charts.

Posted by: Njorl on March 9, 2007 12:27 PM

I'm holding out for the full $250K; real Americans don't trade cash for patriotism, Petey. And I bring outside the box thinking--I'd set up the conference room in Tahiti, where I bet the labor costs for the twenty other staff (or "cabana boys") is substantially smaller than the costs in the US.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on March 9, 2007 12:28 PM

Isn't Reihan sort of lefty? Three lefties and one righty isn't the most auspicious start to this "bipartisan" thing. Douthat would probably turn out to be the bizzaro Alan Colmes of the venture.

Posted by: Al on March 9, 2007 12:32 PM

Isn't Reihan sort of lefty?

Gawd, I hope not. He's on you, Al.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on March 9, 2007 12:34 PM

The column reads like a parody.

I must have read this Broder column a hundred times before. He's just changed the names.

He must have a template for this column in a drawer. He just changes the names every few months and voila he has a "new" column.

Posted by: DonB on March 9, 2007 12:35 PM

Minority != lefty, Al.

Posted by: JP on March 9, 2007 12:36 PM

Sometimes tired old self serving farts are just tired old self serving farts ya' know?

Posted by: SouthernMan on March 9, 2007 12:53 PM

In a column that is a whole truckload of stupid, my personal favorite Broderism was this:

"Republicans have filibustered Democratic resolutions aimed at limiting the war, while Democrats have banned the GOP from even offering its alternatives."

Those Republican alternatives consisting of "Yay, war!"

Posted by: Col Bat Guano on March 9, 2007 01:11 PM

Colonel, read it again.

How can the best part not be "these four diverse characters"?

Dole, Baker, Mitchell, Daschle. Diverse. 4 old, white, straight, male, moderately liberal to moderately conservative ex-Senate Majority Leaders. I mean, really, just the idea that selecting 4 people from the pool consisting of former Senate Majority Leaders could, in the U.S. of A., get you a 'diverse' panel, is almost Reno 911-level funny.

Posted by: the Navigator on March 9, 2007 01:59 PM

Navigator,
Hmmm, you have a strong contender there. I will contemplate the stupidity of it over the weekend.

Posted by: Col Bat Guano on March 9, 2007 05:00 PM

More of that Politics of Personal Destruction

It's not that I think personal destruction is a good thing. Far from it. But if personal destruction is allowed to remain one-sided and imbalanced, in the very important respect that our politicians are immune to it, then many more persons end up being destroyed than would otherwise be the case.

Take the Iraq War. More than 3,000 American persons, and well over half a million Iraqi persons, have so far been destroyed in that war, all to no greater end than to help some politicians win an otherwise dicey-looking election in 2002. Now, if we destroyed just a few, no more than a couple dozen, politicians for their roles in this crime against humanity, that would do far more than anything else we could do to deter the next set of politicians who might be tempted to start a war to win an election. This would prevent personal destruction on a crimes-against-humanity scale, and all with just a few dozen capital trials, and the resulting hangings.

I'm actually all in favor of bipartisanship. I pay Republicans the sincerest form of flattery, in that I believe that we need to imitate them. They have been calling us traitors for two generations. They have been engaged in class warfare against our economic constituency for a generation. They have been personally destroying our social constituency for five years in this GWOT. So far, we have studiously avoided answering them in kind. It's time for our answer. It's time for the partisan warfare in this country to become bipartisan, tit-for-tat, rather than continuing to let them war on us, and our country, unanswered.

Posted by: Glen Tomkins on March 9, 2007 11:13 PM

If you get it, I want in on the deal. I promise to use the word "bipartisan" in every paragraph of every policy paper. You have my personal guarantee on that.

Anything over $100 K will be fine.

Posted by: Quiddity on March 10, 2007 12:07 AM

"Republicans have filibustered Democratic resolutions aimed at limiting the war, while Democrats have banned the GOP from even offering its alternatives."

If Broder is referring to the events described in this Washington Post article, he's got the facts wrong. Briefly, the Democratic leadership proposed that either one Democratic and one Republican proposal be brought to the Senate floor, or two Democratic proposals and two Republican proposals be brought to the Senate under a rule that prevented any of the four proposals from being filibustered. The Republican leadership rejected both of these options. Republicans then filibustered a procedural vote, preventing any of the proposals from coming to the Senate floor.

Posted by: Kenneth Almquist on March 10, 2007 01:02 AM

Dude, instead of a 'conference room', spend a couple million on a decent coffee shop franchise, and get yourselves a reserved table with comfy seats and wifi.

That way you can mack on the wimmens all day as you work.

Posted by: Jon H on March 11, 2007 02:56 PM

Thanks
Best regards
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