It’s a shame it was necessary to remove Lincoln Chaffee from the Senate in order for the Democrats to win control. Chaffee often seems like the kind of guy who should be there, and the Republicans would certainly be a more tolerable party if they had more like him. Writing in The New York Times, Chaffee shows that the Republicans never had any intention to work with Democrats or attempt to achieve a consensus:
Back in December 2000, after one of the closest elections in our nation’s history, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney was the guest at a weekly lunch meeting of a small group of centrist Republicans. Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and I were honored to have the opportunity to visit with him on the eve of a session of Congress in which, because of Republican defeats, the Senate would be evenly divided at 50-50.
As we sat in Senator Specter’s cozy hideaway office and discussed the coming session, I was startled to hear the vice president dismiss suggestions of compromise and instead emphasize an aggressively partisan agenda that included significant tax cuts, the abandonment of international agreements and a muscular, unilateral foreign policy.
I was incredulous. Instead of a new atmosphere of cooperation and civility which, after all, had been the promise of the Bush-Cheney campaign, we seemed ready to return to the poisonous partisanship that marked the Republican-Congress — Clinton White House years.
While no surprise, this is particularly reprehensible considering both how closely the Senate was divided and considering how close this election was (even if we put aside the fact that it took going to the Supreme Court to block a recount in order for Bush to win). So much for Bush’s claims to be a uniter, not a divider. This is something to remember should the Republicans ever complain that their views are not being heard under the Democrats.
