Changing the 'Tone' in Washington

What does it mean to "change the tone" in Washington?

The last two men elected president did so, in part, by promising to "change the tone," to reduce the partisan rancor, to "get things done" by crossing the aisle between Democrats and Republicans. If polls truly represent the mood of the electorate, this was part of the appeal of both men to the important "moderate" swing vote. Indeed, most Americans, not just the squishy middle, would prefer to see less shouting and more reasoning on Capitol Hill, but there is a huge difference between merely going along to get along, and thoughtful debate.

If by "changing the tone" you mean getting one side or the other to simply shut up, roll over and play dead so that the "winners" of the most recent election can do whatever they want, this serves neither civility nor the will of the people.

Bush played the game by inviting liberal Democrats to help write huge portions of major programs the president intended to define the accomplishments of his terms of office: the "No Child Left Behind" Act, mostly written by Sen. Edward Kennedy, and the Medicare Part D drug benefit program, the huge new entitlement. Bush wanted a comprehensive reform of immigration policy, with liberal fingerprints all over it, but the American people - in a rare display of rowdy courage - slapped it down.

What did Bush get for his bipartisan efforts? He was reviled and mocked by rank and file Democrats, vilified by the mainstream media and Hollywood. His once solid, faithful conservative base became disheartened by what they perceived as Bush's foolish, even naive efforts to broaden his support base by abandoning conservative principles.

Perhaps nothing was more illustrative of Bush's presidency than the way it ended: with a series of "bipartisan" efforts to stabilize the economy through massive spending bills and huge grants of raw executive power to unelected bureaucrats in the U.S. Treasury, and at the Federal Reserve. His trashing of free market principles in order to "save the free market system" was wildly popular with liberals at all levels of government. I suspect George W. Bush will forever be linked, as Herbert Hoover before him, with the image of fruitless incompetency, and it will be tied to his alleged conservatism. Alas, there was virtually no conservatism in his actions, but no one will care.

His would-be successor, John McCain, at first tried to embrace the Bush economic doctrine and, immediately covered with its toxic residue, tried to run against it. In an act of political theater worthy of the ancient Greeks, Barack Obama stayed on the sidelines, made a big show of lecturing Bush in a supposedly hush-hush meeting, and avoided the tar pit of the TARP bailout. Once elected, Obama revealed that he couldn't wait to get his hands on the other $350 billion in TARP money, and is actively promoting a "stimulus" pork bill that will probably reach $1 trillion before it is completed.

Now it's President Obama's turn to "change the tone" and he's decided to do it by letting Congress do the dirty work while he sponsors coffees and meetings in a bully pulpit effort to convince everyone that Democrats really want to listen to Republican ideas, and will act on them if they ever come up with anything that liberals can stomach.

To their credit, the conservative survivors of the November elections -- and in the House most of them are actual, not pretend, conservatives -- have figured out this game. Shut out of the deliberative process of bill writing, prevented by sheer numbers from amending legislation, often even denied access to the pending bills until the last few hours before votes, the conservatives have decided that they will not bend to the will of Obama. Come hell or high water, they will stick with their principles.

Oh, if only there had been such resolve during the last four years, we might not be in such a position.

The result was a stimulus bill that passed without a single Republican vote, and another 10 conservatives on the Democratic side crossed over to vote for a losing cause, 244 to 188.

The president and his allies in the press are, naturally, offended that conservatives have rejected his overtures, wooing them with promises that their feelings will be respected if they but only make Obama look good by voting "yes." How dare they! Don't they realize the American people issued a mandate for bipartisanship?

But something interesting is happening. The American people, inspired by a dramatic act of courage vaguely reminiscent of the Battle of the Alamo in which 188 - note the number - of courageous defenders died buying time for the young Texas republic, are beginning to turn against the stimulus package. The latest poll shows only 42 percent of Americans are in favor of it. Over in the Senate there is talk that the stimulus might actually go down to defeat, even though by all rights there are plenty of liberal (and liberal Republicans) to guarantee passage.

It is not bipartisanship for which the American people crave. It is fidelity to principle and courageousness that we seek in our elected representatives on Capitol Hill. It is not the hypocrisy of voting for the confirmation of tax cheats to cabinet posts in the executive branch; it would be the willingness of senators to hold each nominee accountable for their past actions.

The new tone the American people seek is really an old one that we thought had been forgotten: a fair deal in which all are treated as equals under the law, a recognition that we are a nation of laws, not of men, especially not of men who are just too smart to be allowed to fail. We feel that we have been given a raw deal, that there is one law for the elite and their lapdogs in Congress and the media, and another law for the rest of us peons across the fruited plain.

President Obama, if you really want to change the tone in Washington, go tell the members of your own party that they must clean house. Tell the members of your own administration, including that good looking guy in the mirror, that if you talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. If you say no lobbyists, then that really means zero tolerance, no lobbyists. If you say total transparency in all activities of the government, then there must be no opacity: all must be seen.

And if you really want conservative ideas, then they must be heard in congressional committees and be brought up for votes. There must be real debate.

That is the new tone fitting for a true Republic.