The New Republic

It is true that Bob Dole is a "champion" of bipartisan healthcare reform in the same sense that the Washington Nationals are the champions of the National League. Also in the same sense that the Washington Post is a champion of good journalism.

Honestly, why is anyone reading that paper anymore? Back when he played for the Minnesota Twins, Doug Mientkiewicz once said that attempting to understand the infield fly rule made him "mentally dumber." The WaPo is like that: Reading the Post will make you less well-informed. The only consistent exceptions I can find are the Wednesday spirits column, Warren Brown's two Sunday car columns, and the occasional Tom Ricks report. And of course "Mark Trail" in the comics section, assuming you have an electron microscope powerful enough to see any individual daily comic strip.

- rhubarbs

August 14, 2009 at 9:18am

Siren songs generally get more and more excuriating the closer the song bird gets to the abyss. And that's because the closer the bird gets to The End the more bullshit the bird has to sing about. And the more bullshit the bird has to sing about the more bullshit the bird has to rationalize in order that the bird's Legacy reflects this bullshit for posterity.

This being the case, I predict Bob Dole's legacy will be this:

"HE STOPPED THE DEATH PANELS"

gw

- iambiguous

August 14, 2009 at 9:30am

I think Bob Dole being a champion of bipartisan health care reform is more like the Washington Nationals being a champion of the Atlantis Unicorn Water Polo League, in that both arenas are baldly fictitious.

- adaglas

August 14, 2009 at 9:35am

Your amnesia is jaw-dropping.  In 1994, health care reform never even came to a vote in the Senate.  The Dems in the House deep-sixed it.  "When Clinton's plan finally died", yeah that's rich.  It died because the Dems killed it.

I know that in TNR world everything is fault of those nasty Republicans, but jeez.

Besides, I think the reference is to his recent Daschle, Baker & Dole effort.

- butchie b

August 14, 2009 at 10:15am

butche, I was working in the Senate in 1994, and I think it would be fairer to say that while Democrats systematically cut off Hillarycare's legs and arms and then finally shot it in the head, Dole personally spent the entire time stabbing it in the heart. Democrats were responsible for killing health care. But Dole in particular went to the mat to kill it, and he did so in often dishonest ways that burned a number of bridges with Democratic colleagues who never trusted him again, and had Democrats not killed healthcare in 1994, Dole's efforts stood a very good chance of killing it.

It's like the old story of the man who shoots and kills a person who's falling to his death from a great height. Yes, the victim would have died anyway. But it's still murder.

- rhubarbs

August 14, 2009 at 10:42am

My wife worked on the House side in 1994 for a Dem, so I know a little about this.  I don't dispute your version, but I find it odd to blame Dole and the GOP for the death of the Clinton plan. which you do not.  Chait's comments that Dole defeated health care reform are off base.  He may have wanted to, but never got the chance.  fair enough.

- butchie b

August 14, 2009 at 11:35am

butchie, I think Chait's point is that Dole not only worked hard to kill health reform in '94, but specifically used a cynical and at times dishonest cloak of "bipartisanship" to do so. And one reason some Democrats killed healthcare reform was that they were snookered by Dole's trojan horse. So to call Dole a "champion" of "bipartisan healthcare reform" is doubly false: Doles record on healthcare is unambiguously both partisan and opposed to healthcare reform of any kind.

Yes, Dole recently signed on to a third-party "bipartisan" reform proposal, but he did that in 1994 too, and he did so with the specific and admitted aim of preventing any reform from passing.

- rhubarbs

August 14, 2009 at 12:28pm

Remember that there are two senses in which someone can be a "champion" of something.  In the more usual sense, you become a champion by going out and achieving results on behalf of X.  But in a lesser (if equally grammatical) sense of the word, you can also be a champion just by loudly and publicly supporting X, while having zero effect on its overall achievement.

In that latter sense, Bob Dole /is/ a "champion" of bipartisan health care reform -- he has loudly praised the idea to anybody who will listen, and through the "principled" stance of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, had zero effect in getting any such thing passed.

- austinexpat

August 14, 2009 at 2:53pm

A few years ago, a friend of mine, reacting to a sudden Dole resurfacing (which, as such things will do, provided an answer to that perennial question: Dead or Alive?)  said, "Someone should have taken Hunter Thompson's advice years ago." What advice was that? I asked. "Stuff him in a bottle and toss it into the Japanese current." I was pretty sure Thompson was talking about Hubert Humphrey back in the day, but I let it go. Applied to Dole, it sounded like an even better idea, and it still does today.

- cvillekid

August 14, 2009 at 8:32pm

How about actually examining Dole's plan to see if it would really be a good one?

- McDuffy

August 15, 2009 at 10:32am

In fairness to Dole, it may be worth noting that the whole quote, which Chait truncated after the first paragraph is,

"Maybe we can't solve it all this year. If they can do half of it, it would be a miracle," Dole said. "And it would go down as a great example of bipartisanship and what a new president can do when he becomes a realist."

Dole added: "Republicans don't have to do anything. They see [Obama's poll] numbers falling and people protesting." But "we are not the 'no' party," he said. "I think a lot of Republicans do want to get a bill."

Just sayin'

- bl462

August 15, 2009 at 11:54am

In fairness to to the truth, the whole quote suggests to me that Dole is either mentally incompetent at best and/or outright dishonest at the worst.  If he believes "Republicans don't have to do anything", than it's obvious that bipartisanship is not at all a priority for Dole or any currently serving Congressional Republicans.  If Dole or any other tired GOP retread were really "champions" of any "bipartisan" efforts on healthcare or anything else, he or they would have had the backbone to condemn the the perpetual goon tactics being employed at town halls by right-wing extremists with the intention of thwarting any kind of reform, much less a "bipartisan" effort at it.  

While I think Obama might have set himself up for some of this nonsense by overemphasizing a commitment to the idea of bipartisanship during his campaign last year, that doesn't make Dole any less of a weasel for talking the talk while making absolutely zero effort to walk the walk.  Dole and Republicans are acting as if there is nowhere to go but up from where they are now and that may prove to be a serious long term mistake.  The GOP as a whole is viewed far less favorably now compared to the early '90's when Republicans pulled out all the stops to kill health care reform and Obama is not Clinton.  Pointing to a decline in Obama's popularity isn't going to get Republicans back in the majority when Mitch McConell and John Boehner have approval ratings of 22% and 16%.

Great job Republicans!  For all your continuous and systematic efforts to sustain a campaign of constant lies, personal attacks and disinformation, Obama's only three times as popular as the most visible leaders of the GOP instead of four times as popular as he was a few months ago.  With that kind of "success", it may be time to go for the home run and unveil the "CHENEY/PALIN 2012" signs and stickers at the next tea party.  I'm all but certain that a rag like the WASHINGTON POST would gladly dub them as "Champions of bipartisanship".  

- fultimr

August 16, 2009 at 1:51am