Partisan Gridlock?

Former Senator Bayd claimed that one of the reasons why he decided not to run for re-election was that Washington DC was gridlocked by partisan politics. But how much is this really the case? The Democrats did have a super-majority in Senate and had a majority in House; the Republicans were not in a position to do anything to prevent the Democrats from passing any piece of legislation that they wanted. With the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts the Democrats have lost their super-majority and are no longer filibuster-proof but they still have a strong enough majority that they can pass pretty much anything they want. In the House, while the Democrats are not in such a powerful position as in the Senate, still have a majority and pass much pretty much what they want there.
What about reconciling bills? Remember that whenever a bill passes the House, it goes to the Senate, the Senate drafts its own bill, it gets voted on, but then the House and Senate bills have to be reconciled with each other in conference. Well, again, there is not much that the Republicans can do insofar as conferences go. They can propose amendments, proposals, etc., but in the end there not much they can do to stop the Democrats when it comes to reconciling the bills because after the bill comes out of conference the Democrats still have the votes (if the Republicans do not filibuster) to pass any legislation they want. An aside, who can't reconcile the House and Senate Health Care bills? It's not the Republicans who are causing problems on that front. The so-called "partisanship" is contained within the Democrats themselves.
So, where is the partisan gridlock located? Yes the Republicans (most at least) are consistently voting "No" to Democrat plans. However, I think there is a difference between voting "No" simply along party lines and voting "No" because one thinks the bill(s) are bad. Consistently the Republicans have disagreed with the current pieces of legislation because they believe that legislation is bad because it goes against what they believe is right for the country. Is being partisan? In a way, but not simply because the Republican party is saying "No" just for the heck of it. Saying "No" for the heck of it would be purely partisan but the Republicans have been giving substantive arguments against Democrat legislation.

So, really, is it really has gridlocked as it is being claimed? I myself am skeptical.

E-mail to Sean Hannity

Dear Mr. Hannity,

I would like to address the problem with the logic some liberals and Democrats are using in order to attack Republicans and conservatives. Liberals say that in order to help America succeed we must support Obama and what he is doing because not supporting him is divisive and in these tough times we should be trying to bring the country together. However, let's set a hypothetical sceanrio:

The president is saying that policy "P" should be done in order that a certain outcome, call that outcome "O", will occur, and let us say that "O" is economic recovery. "P" is implemented (by whatever means) but after some time passes, "not-O" occurs, i.e., the outcome of "P" is not O, and in this case there is no economy revival. However, the president keeps pushing that we should could doing "P" even though the claimed outcome "O" never occurs as a result of "P". In this hypothetical scenario, under the Liberal mantra of support, we should support the president's policy "P" no matter what because not doing so would be divisive even though the outcomes the president claims will occur do not.

So, essentially what the implicit assumption driving the Liberals' logic is that we should unconditionally support the president, in this case, we should unconditionally support Obama. So, no matter happens as a result of Obama's policies we must support him. However, this logic makes absolutely no sense. Why should we continue supporting Obama if the outcomes that he claims his policies will produce never occur? Obama's policies have been consistent failures and so it follows that if the policies are failures then we are justified in not supporting him. Conservatives/Republicans have a real rational justification for not supporting Obama's policies, and the Liberal mantra that we should unconditionally support Obama is illogical.

Thanks!