Why not Boy-Girl-Boy-Girl?

Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Susan Collins of Maine are mixing it up at the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

For future hearings, Democrats and Republicans won’t sit on opposite sides of the dais but rather, next to each other — alternating Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican etc.

In a joint statement , Chairman Lieberman, an independent, and ranking Republican Collins, said “In the last election, the voters said they were sick of the partisanship that produces gridlock… So, as a start, instead of sitting on opposite sides of the room like a house divided, we want the American people to see us sitting side by side as our committee members work together make our nation more secure and our government more efficient.”

Of all the things you can say that the last election was about, voter revulsion at gridlock wasn't it. From 2002 to 2006, we didn't have divided government; we had a unitary executive branch that pretty much did whatever it wanted, and an acquiescent legislature that rubberstamped whatever the Bushies put before them. There was no gridlock, and certainly no desire to make policy decisions easier for the party in power to enact. The voters were in no desire to hold hands and sign Kumbaya with current Administration.

The theme of the 2006 elections was the virtue of divided government, and a demand for a more partisan opposition. The voters weren't demanding an end to gridlock; they were voting for its restoration. Bipartisanship, in spite of what many of the mouth breathers on the left and right might suggest, isn't an undesirable goal, since, after all, consensus solutions to problems are the ones most likely to endure. But the 2006 election wasn't about finding a bipartisan solution to, say, the war in Iraq, it was about bringing American boys and girls home from Iraq, pronto.