Obama tries to define change as bipartisanship???

The 7-10 Palmer on Politics blog (great blog by the way) writes that Obama is trying to be more bipartisan by garnering more republican votes for his economic stimulus package.

He also writes that Obama never really defined "change" and states that his definition of change might actually be an attempt at being more partisan.

He wrote:

"Obama is showing that he does not want the minority to be irrelevant even though they launched every charge under the sun at him during the campaign. This magnanimity buys him political capital with moderates and persuadable Republicans and could certainly be construed as "change" compared to the Bush administration that tended not to seek compromise. It allows Obama to prove that he really does want to lower the partisanship in Washington and end the era of perpetual "political payback," another "change."

In response to this, I humbly wrote:

"Hold the phone. The Bush administration DID seek compromise. It adapted many programs that were written by democrats. And Obama said he's a man of change, but he's being very partisan, particularly by telling republicans if they listen to democrats they won't be able to deal with democrats. Republicans want more tax cuts, I bet Obama won't budge on that.

Basically, bipartisanship, as defined by liberals is this: Conservatives have to give, liberals do not."

He went on to write, and rightfully so, that Obama wants republicans to sign on to this bill because if the bill fails he will take republicans down with him. If the bill fails and republicans he got the bill through Congress and the Senate (of which he has the votes to do so), and he does not have the support of democrats, then the "republicans will run against" this bill in 2010, and have a good campaign slogan.

In response to this I wrote:

Personally, I hope the republican don't sign on to this bill. Doing so would mean they are putting popularity ahead of politics -- something Bush did not do for much of his administration (although he did do some, i.e. no child left behind, prescription drug program, and his last stimulus package to name a few). So, in that sense, "change" appears to be defined as liberal partisanship in the name of bigger government, more taxes, welfare checks going by the name of taxes, and telling repubs who not to listen to. And repubs being called partisan fools if they fail to accept that Obama won the election. Hence, Obama responding to repub chants for more tax cuts in his stimulus package by saying 'I won'"

Well, I suppose, as the old saying goes, you decide.