The Poison of Blind Partisanship: Putting Party Over Country

By Mike Griffith, Staff Writer

One of the things that is hurting America is the poison of blind partisanship, the poison of putting the interests of your political party ahead of the interests of your country.  Our government and much of our citizenry are badly polarized because of blind partisanship. There are too many people who are more worried about defending their party to the bitter end than they are about being fair and honest.  And there are too many people who are more concerned about keeping their party in power than they are about doing what’s best for the country.

A prime example of the effect of this partisan poison was the willingness of most Republicans to defend the Bush administration’s disastrous post-Saddam strategy in Iraq, not to mention, of course, the refusal of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and other administration officials to admit that the strategy was not working.

By late 2005, it was clear to all who had eyes to see that the Bush-Rumsfeld-Casey strategy in Iraq was a disaster and that it had no hope of succeeding.  Yet, not only did Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co. continue to insist that the strategy was working, but they even denied that we needed more troops in Iraq.  Any Republican who expressed doubt about Bush’s Iraq strategy was branded with all sorts of pejorative labels, such as “dove,” “traitor,” “closet Democrat,” “weak-kneed,” “disloyal,” etc.  Democrats and Independents who questioned the strategy were subjected to even harsher attacks.  

When a great patriot like General Eric Shinseki, who at the time was the Army Chief of Staff, tried to tell the Bush people that they’d need a lot more troops than they were planning on using for the aftermath in Iraq if they hoped to succeed in setting up a stable government, administration officials attacked him, and he decided to retire soon thereafter.

Only after the Republicans got clobbered in the 2006 election did Bush finally, finally admit that his Iraq strategy was not working.  One can only wonder what would have happened if the Republicans had held their own in the 2006 election.  It’s also fair to ask, How many of our troops were needlessly killed or wounded in Iraq because of the Bush administration’s prolonged refusal to change its Iraq strategy?

If a Democratic president had pursued the same incompetent, disastrous policy in Iraq that Bush pursued, you can bet that most Republicans would have ardently attacked him over it and would have demanded a change in course.  But, because Bush was a Republican, most Republicans put on partisan blinders and refused to admit the obvious truth that his Iraq strategy was just plain horrible.

We are seeing the same sort of blind partisanship among Democrats when it comes to Barack Obama’s economic policies.  After justifiably attacking George Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress for runaway spending, ballooning the deficit, and doubling the national debt, the Democrats are now making the Republicans look like penny-pinchers. 

Since the Democrats gained control of Congress in 2006, they have increased the deficit at a faster rate and buried us in more debt than the Republicans did.  Since taking office barely three months ago, President Obama has spent more money in just 100 days than Bush spent in any one year of his presidency.  Even though Bush’s “stimulus” spending clearly did not work, Obama is doing even more of the same—and this at a time when we’re already $11 trillion in debt and having to borrow from foreign nations.  Obama’s own budget admits that soon we will be paying double what we’re now paying just to service the interest on the national debt.

When Independents, conservative Democrats, and Republicans point out that Obama’s borrow-and-spend approach has never worked, we see too many Democrats exhibit the same blind refusal to acknowledge facts that we saw among most Republicans under Bush.  The Japanese tried the very approach that Obama is now trying, and they spent four times the amount of money that Obama is spending, and it did not work.  FDR tried this same approach, and one merely has to look at the raw numbers to see that the New Deal did not end the Great Depression by any stretch of the imagination.

But, what credibility do the Republicans have to say a word about Obama’s economic policies?  After all, when the Republicans were in charge, they racked up huge deficits, doubled the national debt, and allowed hundreds of thousands of jobs to be shipped overseas.  Republicans complained loudly (and justifiably) about the 8,000-plus earmarks in the omnibus spending bill that Obama recently signed, but when the Republicans controlled Congress they passed spending bills that had even more earmarks and more pork in them—and Bush signed every one of those bills.  So Republicans shouldn’t be too surprised that many people are skeptical about their sudden conversion to fiscal conservatism.  (To be fair, it should be mentioned that under Bush some Republicans in Congress did complain about the reckless spending, but most went along with it.)

We need more Americans, both in and out of government, who will put their country ahead of their political party.  We need more Americans who will be fair and honest in how they judge a politician who does not belong to their party.  Too many Democrats refused to acknowledge any of the good things that Bush did.  But, there are plenty of Republicans who are just as unwilling to give Obama credit for any of the good things he’s done.  Just because you didn’t vote for the President in power doesn’t mean you can’t give credit when credit is due.  The sooner we root out the poison of blind partisanship, the better off we will be.

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