End of our side versus your side?

I "watched" the President's State of the Union Address this year with friends on Facebook.

I don't watch what passes for television these days but instead get my media fix via the internet. A Facebook friend had posted a link to the yearly address and I opened it in another browser window on my computer monitor. This allowed me to see and hear the speech while commenting to my Facebook friends about salient points. Let me say that I do believe HOPE is a strategy FOX.

In these iffy times in world history we need hope and not doomsayers or sowers of negativity and venom. We need our lawmakers to make good use of their time in office and by that I don't mean in planning for their next run for office but to insure the well being of the nation and its citizens. We need you to put aside the rhetoric and work together. My friends and I discussed the points of the speech openly on Facebook even though we clearly had different stands on some of the initiatives highlighted. During the Bush years I became a closet Democrat for fear of being burned at the stake. That wasn't good for me or the country.

One of the best things about the President's State of the Union, was for me not the speech. It was the bipartisan seating arrangement. There are reasons that college stadiums put the home team fans on one side and the visitors on the other and it isn't the spirit of cooperation. It is to foster an adversarial atmosphere. And the Republicans on one side of the House and the Democrats on the other (a few scattered independents down the center) only made the US vs THEM atmosphere in American politics worse. It even allowed one Republican  in Obama's first State of the Union to feel supported enough to Boo. OMG was that embarrassing.

So while FOX is calling this a ploy or trick I am calling it a first step not unlike our first step by man for mankind on the moon.

Hatched last week by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., the idea caught fire over the weekend after a poll showed a big majority of the public wanting lawmakers of both parties to sit together at the presidential address. A spirited round of private phone calls and e-mails among lawmakers followed, and by Monday at least five dozen House members and senators had announced they had bipartisan dates for the big dance.

Bravo! Let's make America work again.

Changing Horses

United States Senator Arlen Specter The Republican Senator from Pennsylvania has served since 1980 and has always been a bit of a counter voice among his party changed parties yesterday.

To show you where my flu addled brain wasn't yesterday when I first got the NY Times e-mail alert I wondered why this was important enough to waste ether space. But a friend called and reminded of just who Arlen Specter is. He has left his mark:

Arlen Specter’s five terms have made him the longest-serving U.S. Senator in Pennsylvania’s history. A voice of reason, his independence and balance have won endorsements from the AFL-CIO and high marks from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (100% in 2006), the National Association of Manufacturers (86% in 2006), and the Americans for Tax Reform (90% in 2006).

Time Magazine listed him among the ten best Senators in 2006. Knowlegis rated him the second most powerful Senator in 2006 behind only Majority Leader Bill Frist. A November 11, 2007 Philadelphia Inquirer editorial stated: “Senator Arlen Specter has more clout than some sovereign nations.”

The Republicans want us to believe he has left their party because polls showed he would lose in the primary in his state and this is all about staying in the senate at any costs. Senator Specter says it is the Republican party that has left him. During the last Bush presidency he counseled compromise and conciliation in a Congress which established new records for partisan discord. In foreign affairs, he advocated dialogue and accommodation as an antidote to belligerency and saber rattling. There definitely seemed to be a parting of ways. And his decision to change party affiliation is just the official divorce as it were.

It also highlights an interesting turn in politics these days. The Obama win showed a breakdown in the Red State/Blue State political Mason-Dixon line and now there seems to be less division between Republicans and Democrats - at last real division. The extreme ends of both parties are no longer the leaders as to direction, especially in the Republican party which is in shambles scrambling for a new leader.

Every year more and more voters define themselves as independents or class themselves as centralist on issues. And in these trying global times we want leadership and not party rhetoric. And a lot of us are very, very angry at the belligerency and saber rattling and witch hunting of GW's terms in office. We would like to heal this nation and work together. If that means a few party leaders crossing the lines then I am all for it. Way to go Senator Specter.

He Said Things Would Change

I have been off-roading and spending quality time with my sister and my best friend here in Cedar Crest and not even watching the political news. But I get these alerts in my e-mail from New York Times and they said Obama was again heading to the hill to confer with Congressional leaders and Republicans on his economic stimulus bill!

Wait this is a sitting president. Not a president elect or a presidential wannabe. GW Bush spent eight years enshrined in the Oval office! He never even invited a single Democrat to the White House until his final two months in office. And President Obama has not only had everyone up for lunch and conference but is going once again to the Capital to confer with the opposing party!

For those of you looking for signs that he is fulfilling his promise for change look no further. This is a huge change. And not only is he talking to them but asking questions like, "Do you have a better suggestion?" Boy is this a far cry from the belligerent, "I am the decider" we have all become so used to in almost a decade of disastrous leadership.

But it takes more than just one side to make for bipartisanship. Come on Republicans get into the spirit of this new cooperation. Let's all pull as a team to get us out of this quagmire into which we have sunk.

We are not Republicans and Democrats or liberals and conservatives or Red States and Blue States. We are Americans all in the same state of economic collapse with an eroding infrastructure and an over-dependence on foreign imports be they oil or Parker Toys with lead paint from China. If you cannot cozy up to the opposition at least give President Obama an honest hearing when he comes to your house to extend the hand of cooperation.