Why reaching out to the other side of the aisle won’t work:

Yesterday there was much yabber on Dem blogs about hoping that Pres. Bush would

“reach out to the other side of the aisle”. Allow me to point out the obvious: it’s all window dressing.

First of all, “the other side of the aisle” lost big. As I said yesterday, Pres. Bush won the national vote by 3,700,000 votes, an absolute majority (the first absolute majority in the past four elections), the Senate’s 53:44 Republican, the house is 212:193, and there are 27:21 Republican governors now elected. In other words, Bush won a mandate.

Second: tactically, ”the other side of the aisle” is better served by spending its energy retrenching, reorganizing, and making a token effort not too look too sore, while having the Republicans take the blame for whatever goes wrong, and then coming back and taking credit for whatever goes well.

Third, ”the other side of the aisle” may be on the wrong side. It got there by embracing a stance that runs against the grain of the majority of Americans. MoveOn, Michael Moore, and strident radio talk shows that didn’t catch on are but an example. When an evil man like Osama bin-Laden himself is using the talking points of your party, it’s time to do some serious soul-searching.

Until then, let’s leave the other side of the aisle to itself.