The détente has to end sometime.
Notice the lack of partisan releases from committees and candidates this week? It's an expected -- and reverent -- pause both Republicans and Democrats are taking in honor of the victims of the Arizona shooting.
Notice the lack of partisan releases from committees and candidates this week? It's an expected -- and reverent -- pause both Republicans and Democrats are taking in honor of the victims of the Arizona shooting.
The debate this week inside the Beltway was supposed to have centered around the planned health care repeal vote scheduled for Thursday. Instead, the staple of press hits and talking points were shelved. Now, all of Washington's waiting. The partisan bickering seems a lot less important when the life and health of a member of Congress stands in the balance.
"What this has done is led Washington to take a deep breath, and it's put politics on the backburner," one Republican committee official told Hotline On Call.
But next week, the questions will begin -- and eyes will be on who will be the first to break the unofficial pact of silence.
In many ways, each side already has. Sure, no one in an official capacity has begun slamming an individual member or put the heft of a party committee behind a charge, but the finger pointing has nonetheless been begun in earnest between pundits and coalition leaders.
Washington will inevitably get back to politics as usual. Is it, after all, the business of this town. After times of a national crisis, there's always a "rally around the flag" moment. But the attacks eventually start up again -- they did after the Oklahoma City bombing, they did after 9/11, and they will after this.
But the question is, how will this week's events change the tenor of the 2012 cycle that's just now beginning. On their first day in Congress last week, many of the freshmen who won bitterly-fought contests were more than ready to look ahead.
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), who won by less than 700 votes, said her campaign made her realize "how hard I have to work and how hard I have to work to unify the district, and for those who didn't support me, to make sure they have a good representative here in Washington." It was just that outlook that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) had, too, as she worked to reach out to constituents, Republican and Democrats, on the corner outside a Safeway last Saturday.
Still, some of the outspoken voices from last year, are unlikely to tone down their rhetoric much. Tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-Fla) has already pushed back at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's (D-Fla.) call for more temperate rhetoric. And if anything, the left's rush to point fingers after the shooting could make Tea Party acolytes more upset -- they've already sent out a fundraising email on just that premise. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also sent out a fundraising letter, citing the political climate that he says contributed to the attack - greeted, privately, with outrage by Republicans.
But for some, especially for ones where the tragedy hit close to home, perhaps the stinging attacks will resonate.
"When I show up at a candlelight vigil sponsored by the state Democratic Party and people who spent the past year beating the crap out of me come up and give me a hug, there is something that, at least for a little while, in this window, is very different," freshman Rep. Dave Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told Politico.
It was a sentiment Obama echoed in his speech Wednesday evening in Tucson, too, telling mourners that "at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."
Stepping back is good. But looking forward is better -- and remembering that the person you're launching that verbal grenade at is a person too.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/blogs/hotlineoncall/2011/01/how-long-will-the-political-cease-fire-last--13
"What this has done is led Washington to take a deep breath, and it's put politics on the backburner," one Republican committee official told Hotline On Call.
But next week, the questions will begin -- and eyes will be on who will be the first to break the unofficial pact of silence.
In many ways, each side already has. Sure, no one in an official capacity has begun slamming an individual member or put the heft of a party committee behind a charge, but the finger pointing has nonetheless been begun in earnest between pundits and coalition leaders.
Washington will inevitably get back to politics as usual. Is it, after all, the business of this town. After times of a national crisis, there's always a "rally around the flag" moment. But the attacks eventually start up again -- they did after the Oklahoma City bombing, they did after 9/11, and they will after this.
But the question is, how will this week's events change the tenor of the 2012 cycle that's just now beginning. On their first day in Congress last week, many of the freshmen who won bitterly-fought contests were more than ready to look ahead.
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (R-N.Y.), who won by less than 700 votes, said her campaign made her realize "how hard I have to work and how hard I have to work to unify the district, and for those who didn't support me, to make sure they have a good representative here in Washington." It was just that outlook that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) had, too, as she worked to reach out to constituents, Republican and Democrats, on the corner outside a Safeway last Saturday.
Still, some of the outspoken voices from last year, are unlikely to tone down their rhetoric much. Tea party favorite Rep. Allen West (R-Fla) has already pushed back at Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's (D-Fla.) call for more temperate rhetoric. And if anything, the left's rush to point fingers after the shooting could make Tea Party acolytes more upset -- they've already sent out a fundraising email on just that premise. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has also sent out a fundraising letter, citing the political climate that he says contributed to the attack - greeted, privately, with outrage by Republicans.
But for some, especially for ones where the tragedy hit close to home, perhaps the stinging attacks will resonate.
"When I show up at a candlelight vigil sponsored by the state Democratic Party and people who spent the past year beating the crap out of me come up and give me a hug, there is something that, at least for a little while, in this window, is very different," freshman Rep. Dave Schweikert (R-Ariz.) told Politico.
It was a sentiment Obama echoed in his speech Wednesday evening in Tucson, too, telling mourners that "at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized - at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do - it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds."
Stepping back is good. But looking forward is better -- and remembering that the person you're launching that verbal grenade at is a person too.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/blogs/hotlineoncall/2011/01/how-long-will-the-political-cease-fire-last--13