Partisan and Bipartisan

As promised, I am posting about the misuse of the words partisan and bipartisan, as suggested by a loyal reader. I suspect the reader was concerned about how liberal politicians and media correctly describe straight party-line votes in legislative bodies (when all the members of one party vote one way and all the members of another party vote the other way) as "partisan." However, if a few Democrats vote with the Republicans, the position for which the Republicans voted is nevertheless called a "partisan," vote and not a "bipartisan" one. Yet if a few Republicans join with the Democrats, the vote is hailed as "bipartisan." In short, Democrats who join with Republicans are never praised for bipartisanship, like those Republicans who join with the Democrats are. Conversely, Republicans are often described as voting in a "partisan" manner, even when joined with a few Democrats, whereas Democrats are routinely credited with bipartisanship for picking up token Republican support. This example is only one of many double standards that reveal liberal media bias.

But there is a broader misuse of the word partisan. When Republicans vote the opposite of Democrats, "partisanship" is often blamed by the media as the GOP's motive, even though ideology is the true motive. Yet Democratic motivations are seldom ascribed to partisanship, but to principled beliefs. There are times when partisanship occurs and is even reasonable (in regard to the Census or reapportionment, in appointments to bipartisan panels, etc.), although there perhaps are some times when the members of one party do not wish to see the other party receive blame or wish to deny it credit. But usually the motive of politicians on substantive matters is based, at least in part, upon their beliefs, and not merely in order to take an opposite position just for the sake of opposing the other party in order to advance their own.

Indeed, the reason the two parties are so sharply divided (and in Congress, in particular, why the votes on controversial matters tend to be nearly party-line) is because they have such different beliefs on the issues.