A take on Bob Corker and Lindsay Graham

There has been a unified chorus of discontent with the ongoing negotiations between Chris Dodd and Bob Corker on the financial regulation bill; and between Lindsay Graham, Joe Lieberman and John Kerry on climate change. The left has characterized both respective battles as a waste of energy on a process that substantially weakens important legislation while the right has accused the two senators of being RINOs (Republicans in Name Only). These adverse reactions to bipartisanship on both sides of the political spectrum only reinforce the polarized times we live in. I think both of these assertions miss their mark, especially in a bipartisan institution such as the senate.

The senate is known to be where bipartisan deals are struck, as the minority wields the power to obstruct, which is absent in the house. This is not to say that the power to obstruct hasn't been overwhelmingly abused recently, but it does have a purpose. This is where the art of compromise has been forgotten. The conservative GOP primary electorate is so bent on opposing Obama's agenda that politicians have no ability to negotiate on important issues. Legislators have forgotten that compromise means "a settlement of differences by mutual concessions." Lindsay Graham and Bob Corker (and to a lesser extent Olympia Snowe) therefore are possiby the last republican negotiators in the senate. They just happen to be very conservative senators, and their concessions must be correspondingly deep. If the GOP's more liberal senators (Judd Gregg, Olympia Snowe, Scott Brown and Susan Collins) negotiated in good faith on these issues, their concessions would not gain the ire of liberals in the same way.

Sadly, this is how partisan congress has become. We can only hope that more senators will follow these two in fulfilling the senate's role in government.