By Robert Tracinski (Click here to download an image of this author for print publication.)
While the election crisis was still upon us, I hated it as much as anyone else. As a columnist, I probably hated it more. How do you write about politics when the news reverses direction every two hours?
But now that it's all over, I'm getting downright nostalgic about the "bitterness" and "rancor" of the past few months.
You see, I don't like bipartisanship.
We have been inundated for the past week with pabulum about the need to "reach across the aisle," and about the necessity for non-"inflammatory" rhetoric and non-"divisive" policies. But what all of this really means is that we're headed back to the Land of the Bromide.
We set full sail for that land on Wednesday night. Gore's concession was hailed as a "great" speech that showed unusual sincerity. But all I heard was a series of vague references to God, unity, love of country, the "common good," and even a quote from the song "America, America." I'm sure that if he were given more time, the vice president would have gotten around to Mom and Apple Pie.
But Bush took the bromide to an even higher level. He invoked the "promise of America," promised once again to "leave no child behind," spoke of "empowerment," excellence in education, "opportunity," God, prayer, unity, and, of course, the "American dream." Bush's speech elevated the meaningless conventional sentiment to the foundation of public policy.
And that's why I miss the "bitter," "divisive" partisanship of the past month. People may have been bitterly divided, but at least they were divided on a real issue.
Many pundits portrayed the wrangling in the courts, and even the split decision by the Supreme Court, as a product of narrow, crass partisanship. But in fact, the fighting centered on a fundamental issue, even though most people were unable to name it clearly. That issue is: the rule of law vs. unlimited democracy.
The Democrats claimed that the "will of the majority" is paramount--and so they concluded that the "intent" of every single voter must somehow be determined. Perversely, however, this meant empowering local officials to decide what the voters "really" meant, with no objective standards to guide them. As with so many Democratic policies, it meant giving arbitrary authority to government officials.
The best Republican arguments of the past month all pointed to an opposing principle: the rule of law. The rule of law means more than just abiding by court decisions. It means that the power of government must be limited by strict adherence to objective legal standards that are stated and known beforehand. And that was the substance of the Republicans' case: that the votes should be counted according to uniform and objective standards, not the caprice of local officials, and that the contest ought to follow procedures laid down beforehand by law, as opposed to a schedule invented by judges after the fact.
America's Founders called this kind of system--a government limited by a constitution and the rule of law--a "republic." And in that respect, the two major parties are well-named. The Democrats tend to stand for a government that exercises unrestrained power in the name of majority rule--while the Republicans, at their best, stand for a government restrained by the rule of law.
This is the kind of crucial philosophical difference that gives partisanship a good name, because it reminds us that parties exist to stand for basic ideas about the proper role of government.
Now imagine what this kind of partisanship could accomplish. The same passion Republicans devoted to arguing whether the vague phrase, "the intent of the voter" was an objective standard for counting votes--this passion could be channeled into arguing whether the vague phrase "the public good" is an objective standard for legitimizing a whole slew of government controls. The antitrust laws--which have their own special non-objective standard, the undefined term "competition"--would be a good start. And the demand for finality and for schedules determined by law could be applied, for example, to fiascos like the AOL-Time Warner merger, which regulators have blocked indefinitely, with no clear reason, for more than a year.
I wish we could have some good, old-fashioned partisan wrangling over this kind of issue.
That kind of partisan division--that kind of debate on fundamental issues--would be much better for the country than the kind of vague, bland, superficial "unity" we can expect to suffer through for the next few months.
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