there have been plenty of things that were supported by both parties which have turned out to be shitty ideas. the patriot act springs to mind. and there's the iraq war (although a majority of democrats voted against war authorization, a whole lot of them still voted in favor, which was enough to give it a "bipartisan label" at the time). further back in history there are things like the bipartisan support for racial discrimination, disenfranchisement of various groups. slavery was supported by federalists, whigs and democrats, that's tripartisan! and yet, i still think it's a really awful thing.
but still the word "bipartisan" has this positive connotation to it. and that connotation is not just not in the practical sense (the fact that bipartisan things have better odds at passing), but it also seems to suggest that by being bipartisan that makes it a better idea.
then there's bipartisanship's ugly step-brother. i'm not sure what it's called, it doesn't really have an official name. it's sort of the flip-side of bipartisanship. it's the idea that if both sides hate something, it must be a good idea. for example, here's one of senator salazar's argument for why we should adopt the recommendations of the iraq study group:
I know there are people on both sides who don’t like it; the White House doesn’t like it. Since there are people on both sides who don’t like it, maybe it’s the right thing."everyone hates this" is an even stupider reason to be for something than "everyone loves this."
besides, here's my solution for iraq: let's cut off every americans' middle finger without anaesthetic. it might not solve the problem, but i bet it's unpopular! i haven't polled the question, but i expect that about 101% of the american public (MOE +/-3%) would be against the proposal. that means that even more people hate my idea than the ISG recommendations, so it must be totally awesome, right senator salazar?
