Post-Partisan Depression

With Democrats ascending, the wordplay in Washington is improving even if the economy isn't. Pressuring Barack Obama to be more aggressive, Congressman Barney Frank said yesterday, "At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have."

He also chided the President-Elect's policy of reaching across party lines: "Having lived with this very right-wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time, the notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be post-partisan gives me post-partisan depression."

No worries about an excess of wit or a partisanship gap, however, on the part of Democratic Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who sent George W. Bush a gotcha letter on the Detroit bailout, urging him to use "the TARP funds, or to work with the Federal Reserve to make available assistance through its existing lending programs, or both."

Translation: We can't or won't do anything until our man takes over the White House, so if the situation gets worse, it's your fault if you don't do something but, if you do, we get credit for pushing you into doing it.

When President Obama is finally in charge, he will have more than one kind of partisanship to overcome.