‘What Sotomayor Senate vote really portends for Obama’s future’
Posted by Keith Kamisugi | Filed under Opinion
In a blog post today on latimes.com, Andrew Malcolm actually says very little about the impact on President Obama of the Senate vote on Judge Sotomayor, despite the post title. The piece should have been titled “Sotomayor: Americans Profess to Like Bipartisanship, but Vote Otherwise.”
” … polls and elections also show that Americans collectively really don’t care whether bipartisanship happens, making them the raving hypocrites rather than the politicians who get blamed for partisan rancor when they’re merely reflecting the electorate.
“In fact, numbers would suggest that as much as Americans profess to like amicability, they reward political divisiveness. In the autumn of 2005, half the Democrats in the Senate joined Republicans in a 78-22 confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr..
“However, in 2006, the year of midterm elections, only four Democrats crossed the aisle to confirm Justice Samuel Alito in a 58-42 vote closer to party lines. Not one single Democrat voted for Alito in committee.
“The result that year: Voters awarded control of both houses of Congress to partisan Democrat leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi for the first time since 1994. And they haven’t really looked across the aisle since.”
Tags: Andrew Malcolm, bipartisanship, Congress, lat, los angeles times
