You strongly imply (indeed, you state) that bipartisanship yields better policy; better, that is, than policies promulgated and supported by only one party. And at some level that is certainly the case, for all of the reasons that you cite.

But would you concede that it is possible for a policy that is initially supported by only one party to be eventually embraced on a much wider scale?

Or, the converse, would you agree that some policies that have the support of political leaders on both sides of the aisle have had disastrous effects. After all, a Republican president put U.S. forces on the ground in Saudi Arabia, and a Democratic president left them there. This had the effect of energizing al Qaeda AND propping up a despotic regime.

To cite a more recent example, there is strong bipartisan support in Washington for the notion that democracy promotion should be a core object of U.S. foreign policy, but pollster Daniel Yankelovich, writing in the May/June 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs, found that only 20 percent of Americans ranked promoting democracy as a “very important” goal for the U.S. government – the lowest support noted for any goal asked about in the survey.

The public is disenchanted with our current partisan state of affairs, and they see bipartisanship — as you point out — as an empty political word. But I don’t see how they will become more enamored with bipartisanship if Washington is leaning in one direction, and the public at large is leaning strongly in the other.

So, don’t we have to be more specific about which policies are likely to derive strong, bipartisan support — support from the public at large, and not just from opinion leaders? And if the results turn out not as the supporters predicted, don’t we have an obligation to say, “This particular case of bipartisanship did not serve American interests.”

Thoughts?
Chris Preble