Bipartisanship no longer means cooperation

It means the GOP has squeezed out any moderates and now is a party of rabid wingnuts who can't possibly sign or even touch anything that has Democratic cooties on it and are so committed to sabotaging anything the Democrats might actually get done, that now we can only kinda sorta share ideas.

Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly:

Bills that pass with bipartisan support have traditionally meant one party reaching out to moderates from the other party to put together a reasonably good-sized majority. If the usual Senate majority has around 53 members or so, finding some moderates from the other side of the aisle meant passing a bill with as many as 60 votes. It reflected a fairly broad base of support for the legislation.

Under the current circumstances, though, the expectations for the majority are skewed -- Republicans have almost entirely excised moderates from their ranks, and voters have handed Democrats a huge majority. If the governing party passes a bill with 60 votes, all of a sudden, we're told, that's not good enough anymore. In reality, it's a distorted standard -- it's not the Democrats' fault Republicans have become too conservative, failed at governing, and were punished by voters.

It's probably a mistake for the White House to try to change and/or parse the meaning of the word "bipartisan." But it's an even bigger mistake for the political world to hold the Democratic majority to skewed and unreasonable standards.