Dissatisfied politicians and wonks (mostly non-Democrats) are busily opining President Obama’s failure to even attempt the bipartisanship he had promised. These folks may be right to some extent, but certainly not to the extent that would warrant all of their whining.

It is clear why they moan, however: their concept of bipartisanship is ridiculous. They think that bipartisanship means that they actually end up getting their ideals manifested in law, or that they more generally just get something that they want. Perhaps this operating definition of bipartisanship is best seen in Mr. Rush Limbaugh’s proposal that the stimulus bill be 51% spending and 46% tax cuts, to reflect the proportion of people who voted for each of the two main candidates. (I don’t recall exactly the figures used in Mr. Limbaugh’s example.) However, I must reiterate: bipartisanship is not everyone getting what they want in proportion to the representation of their opinions in the legislative body. Instead, I submit that it suffices to qualify as bipartisan if one seeks the advice of people in the opposing party and seeks to garner their support, as opposed to concocting something without consulting the opposition and without seeking to sway them. Of course, such activity is consistent with the opposition still not getting a single thing that they want.

Now, I do not know to what extent Obama et al. are consulting the opposition on their projects (viz., the recently passed stimulus bill). It may be that they are not carrying out their promises. However, I would guess that there would still be much weeping and gnashing of teeth even if serious consultation and legitimate persuasion were going on; indeed, I guess that those now griping would not actually be happy until bills looked exactly as they wanted them to. Of course, I think that whichever party is the minority (or on the losing side of a particular debate) will cry this foul to some extent, so I am not casting dispersions generally on one party for this.

In short, bipartisanship need not lead to any compromise, nor should we want that to be a constraint on the concept. Imagine that one party were egregiously and dangerously wrong on a particular point–certainly we would not want the other party to actually concede an inch to them if they didn’t have to by way of practical exigencies. Bipartisanship is the political analogue of open-mindedness and/or tolerance, I think. This is just to say that it is mostly (if not entirely) an intellectual phenomenon.