A House Divided Against Itself Can Not Stand

I think Lincoln's words ring all too true today. I was flipping through the channels yesterday and came across "Meet The Press" on MSNBC. Tim Russert was interviewing Maryland Senate candidates, Michael Steele(R) and Ben Cardin(D). I wanted to highlight something Michael Steels said during the interview.

Look, since 2000, we’ve watched our country divide itself along red and blue lines — Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative — and what have we got to show for it? All we’ve got is a lot of noise. Now, you know(to Russert), you know(to Cardin), everybody in the world knows I’m a Republican, so that’s part one. But part two is, what are you going to do as a senator? And part of what I’ve seen in Washington is exactly what’s represented here today. Old Washington, old ways, an old mind-set that polarizes, that wants to say, you know, "When we take control." You know, how about the country? How about the interest of the country? How about we creating a bipartisan — what I did not hear on the Iraq subject, for example, is a move towards a bipartisan consensus. You’ve got a commission out there with, with Baker and Hamilton that are looking at a strategy to help us resolve some important difficulties in Iraq on a bipartisan consensus. This is about taking control of the Congress and not so much about solving the problem.