I Don't Want to Grow Up, I'm a Bipartisan Kid

God bless media synergy: It turns this advertisement for an embarrassing idea on the insidery HotSoup website into a simulacrum of a news story. A Marylander who participates on the site founded by a rainbow of humanity ranging from former Clinton hacks to former Bush hacks has drafted a "Ford Pledge" he wants congressfolk to take in honor of our funniest president.

In honor of Gerald Ford, his decency, and the tremendous sacrifices he made to heal this country at a time of division, I pledge to spend 2007 working towards a similar depolarization – by cooperating with peers from opposing camps, by putting my countrymen's needs before my party's, and by making sacrifices if necessary.

First, who calls people "countrymen"? Besides actors at Colonial Williamsburg?

Second, this is so silly it seems like a prank; something Peter Wood cooked up to get people like us to fall for that New Anger jazz. Because this is nonsense. As Ryan Sager puts it, Bipartisanship is another word for "terrible idea." "Division" produces Tom Coburn's fights against earmarks, Russ Feingold's counterattacks against the PATRIOT Act, Jim DeMint's last-man-standing support for Social Security reform, and Ted Kennedy's bill to force a debate about the Iraq surge. "Depolarization" produces No Child Left Behind, McCain-Feingold, the 2002 Iraq War resolution, and Medicare Part D. "Depolarization" should not be the goal of a political system populated by grown-ups.