The Beginning of Bipartisanship?

The lead story in The New York Times this morning is titled, “Senators Strike Bipartisan Deal on Job Creation.” The story describes an agreement between Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and Senator Charles Grasslely, Republican of  Iowa, on a combination of job creation and tax breaks for business. Though the result seemed to have been blessed by leadership on both sides of the aisle, the result was thrown into doubt by some revisions made by Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate.

Apparently, Mr. Reid was concerned by previous Republican negotiating tactics on  healthcare when they had made early progress and then torpedoed the effort by poison pill, political amendments.

And he was right to be concerned. The Republicans  have almost no incentive to bargain in good faith, and their idea of compromise, as President Obama noted, is to get all their proposals passed while giving little in return. Senator Reid was rightly concerned by some rumblings from Mitch McConnell and some special deals for some senators that could be attacked by the Republicans just like they did for Senator Ben Nelson in the healthcare debate.

Let the Republicans remember for a change who won the last election. And the latest CBS/New  York Times polls seems to put the public on the Democrats side as far as trust and lack of ulterior motives.