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Among the many idiotic sentiments to come out of the left in their post-defeat wailing and grinding of teeth is the notion that President Bush should “reach out” to “heal” the “divided nation.”

Unlike many bright ideas emanating from the fringes—among them secession from “Jesusland,” Michael Moore’s comment that people simply had not been “educated” enough on Bush’s evils (let’s send those ignorant 59 million to re-education camps, Mike, just like Pol Pot’s Cambodia!), and the expected “stolen votes in Florida and Ohio” drivel—Reaching Out and Healing the Divided Nation is one of the more mainstream Democratic ideas.

By “mainstream Democratic idea,” I naturally mean that the national news media have all repeated and endorsed Reaching Out.

Reaching Out. Doesn’t it sound great? I’ll leave it in caps. We ought to Reach Out…Heal the Rift…Hug Everybody. Of course, like most liberal ideas, it’s great on paper but impossible in reality.

In truth, Reaching Out is a good idea, but not in its current form. We will come around to that conclusion - where else? - at the conclusion of this essay.

First, though, must come the three supporting paragraphs.

By insisting Bush should Reach Out, the left is implicitly criticizing the president by leaving unsaid the following: Bush did not Reach Out his first four years. Herein is the first myth of a fallacy-filled argument. In fact, the Reaching Out argument is as fallacious as the Clinton Oval Office. We will examine different instances where President Bush bent over backwards to work with those who oppose him and got little more than a knife in the back for his efforts.

The second myth of Reaching Out is that Reaching Out will make Democrats like or be more willing to work with the President. Like the first ill-informed assumption, this one is based on Bush’s experiences in the past four years and will be refuted using the aforementioned examples.

The third myth of Reaching Out is that the winning president has an obligation to somehow include people or ideas from the losing side in his administration, particularly if he wins with a narrow margin of victory.

Since the problem begins with definition, let’s clarify. For our purposes, Reach Out means:

1. Compromise on issues that aren't central to your principles, and
2. Allow Democrats to help shape policy on those issues.

Sounds reasonable enough, doesn't it? With that definition set, let’s look at the president’s first term.

Myth 1: President Bush did not Reach Out his first four years

Au contraire, mes Francophile amis! President Bush tried many times to include and even woo the other side. In the eyes of many a true conservative, Bush has co-opted numerous liberal ideas—among them a massive education bill, the prescription drug benefit, and general unbridled government spending.

Bush doesn’t compromise on his convictions, and that is why he is vilified as a partisan. Like him or not, George W. Bush has not compromised on tax cuts, family values, and the War on Terror. In a startling coincidence, these are the principles that Bush ran on (naturally excluding the War on Terror).

As we noted earlier, this is a problem of definition. To liberals, “Reach Out” means We Get Our Way Every Time And The First Time You Do Something We Don’t Want We’ll Hate You Again. Even where Bush has compromised, he Has Not Compromised Enough, as evidenced by the stem-cell research controversy. Bush took a very evenhanded, nuanced stance by limiting federal funding for stem-cell research only to scientists who used the existing fetal stem-cell lines. He tried his best to satisfy all sides of a complex issue—Nancy Reagan, as you recall, favors federal funding of stem cell research—and all it netted him was confusion, and unscientific, inane ingratitude from people like John Edwards, who recently declared that Christopher Reeve would be walking around if not for mean, heartless George W. Bush. That’s example number one.

Myth 2: Reaching Out will make Democrats like or be more willing to work with the President.

To expertly analyze this crock of horse poo, we will first look at two more examples in easy-to-understand (okay, and easy-to-write) bullet format:

Example of Bush Reaching Out #2: The No Child Left Behind Act

• What it was: A January 2002 bill that gave Democrats their dream- virtual federal control of America’s schools.
• Who Bush Reached Out to: Teddy Kennedy, the second-most liberal Massachusetts senator / failed presidential candidate
• What Bush got for it: Filibusters, filibusters, demonization, more filibusters.
• Reaching Back Quote: “Saddam's torture chamber reopened under new management: U.S. management.”1 –Ted Kennedy, patriotically discussing the Abu Ghraib incident.

It’s hard to reach across the aisle when you’re afraid your hand will get bitten off for cheap political points. Ironically, nobody even died at Abu Ghraib- it was apparently safer than Teddy’s Oldsmobile.

Now, not all Democrats are blindly partisan staff-murdering monsters like Ted Kennedy. The President can work with a lot of Democratic congressmen and achieve much- and he has. To hear Ted Kennedy and Dan Rather tell it, though, the “most partisan president ever” is hellbent on steamrolling his right-wing agenda down America’s throat.

Example of Bush Reaching Out #3: Black American Firsts

• What it was: Bush makes history in 2001 by appointing the first black Secretary of State, the first black female National Security Adviser, and he does it not because they’re black- because they’re the most qualified for the job.
• Who Bush Reached Out to: Black Americans, 9% of whom voted for him in 2000.
• What Bush got for it: A whopping 11% of the black vote in 2004.
• Reaching Back Quotes: “When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."2 –Harry Belafonte in 2002, likening Colin Powell to a “house slave” “Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and Confederate swastika flying side by side.”3 –NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, speaking in 2002 about Republicans

The truth is, partisan Democrats like Ted Kennedy, black extremists like Julian Bond and Harry Belafonte, and all other sorts of haters would be on CNN screaming the sky was red if the President dared to call it blue. Dan Rather would rush to his desk, double-click on Microsoft Word, create documents with God’s letterhead proclaiming the sky red, run them through a copier thirty-nine times, and be back on your screen in five minutes’ time gravely questioning whether a color-blind president ought to remain in office.

The bottom line is this: in the eyes of the partisan extremist, Bush will never Reach Out enough, try as he might. It is a credit to the president’s patience and maturity that he continues trying to court the opposition. A less patient man would just tell them to go f--- themselves. A less patient man from Wyoming. (stop here if you get the joke, if not, read on!) Who has a heart problem. And a lesbian daughter. Named Dick. Cheney. Not the daughter, the less patient man from Wyoming.

Myth 3: Presidents have an obligation to include ideas or people from the opposition in their administration, particularly if their margin of victory is close.

In order to bat down this badly thrown pass, let’s dig deep and go waaaaay back in history…stop…ok…look at the most popular (ok, the only) Democratic president in a generation- Bill Clinton.

Handed the presidency in 1992 by Ross Perot, having earned 43% of the popular vote—with a majority of the votes in only his home state of Arkansas and the democratic fortress of Washington D.C.—nobody insisted Clinton should Reach Out to the 57% Of People Who Did Not Vote For Him. No Republicans served in Clinton’s cabinet- and he didn’t appoint Perot to be Secretary of State. To be sure, Clinton’s cabinet wasn’t chock full of liberals, but remember- those were the days before the liberal coup d’etat marginalized decent, moral Democrats like Joe Lieberman.

In American presidential politics, as in war, sports, and other parts of the real world, to the victor go the spoils. If the executive branch was supposed to be like San Francisco peewee soccer—where they don’t keep score and everybody gets a trophy—the Constitution would say so:

Let me know when you find that part.

Peter Berkowitz of the Weekly Standard suggests appointing Democratic federal judges, or even selecting a “‘liberal hawk’ to a high-level position on his national security or foreign policy team.”4

Liberal hawk? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Honestly, Berkowitz has a decent idea. As stated earlier, there are persons in the Democratic Party with whom the president can work and has worked. Regrettably, their number is dwindling, as the hijackers of a once-noble, once-great party huddle together on the coasts.

Bush could do something to Reach Out to the moderate Democrats: but he is under no obligation by law or even historical precedent to do so. In the beginning of the two-party system, John Adams shut Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans out of his administration, and even passed a law which got many of them thrown into jail.5 Would that Bush could do that today: my heart warms at the thought of Tom Daschle and Michael Moore sharing a cell with someone of John Coffey’s stature (you know, John Coffey from The Green Mile) and Zed’s sexual appetites (you know, Zed from Pulp Fiction).6

Perverted partisan fantasies aside, politics has always been a blood sport where the winner takes all. To be sure, government cannot function without cooperation- but some people are impossible to work with.

In between the jokes—funny, unfunny, lame, stupid, really stupid, and just plain revolting—my dear fellow aspiring thinkers, we can clearly see:

1. The president Reached Out in his first term and will continue to do so, although:
2. Reaching Out will never satisfy the extremists who oppose him, and:
3. He's under no obligation to Reach Out to the people he just beat by 3.7 million votes.

As we stated earlier, Reaching Out is not a bad idea. Here is the rub: both sides must Reach Out.

We may have stumbled upon a viable solution: Drum roll…the losing side ought to Reach Out to the winners! Maybe if they did that, they wouldn’t always find themselves on the losing side. They would not have to root against America, praying for bad news on Iraq and the economy to make the case for change for them. They would not lead a party that is virtually bereft of good ideas but full of negativity, cynicism, and above all, the following conviction: "We don’t need to change- we just have to repackage the same tired litany of race-baiting, moral relativism, and class warfare that is handed down to us from the coalition of special interest groups that fund us. Then we can cobble it into a believable platform so that enough gullible people will buy into it and vote for us."

The problems with the Democratic Party, however, are for another essay. Or a book. Or a anthology of twenty-six books.7

The point of this essay is that Reaching Out will only work if the other side Reaches Out, too. It’s a two-way street. To be sure, the winner should be gracious in victory. What the haters on the left miss is this: the losing side should be equally gracious in defeat! After all, their ideas lost! When will this light bulb appear over the pundits’ heads?

Unfortunately for America, this epiphany most probably will not occur until the next time a Democrat wins the presidency. Then, losers Reaching Out—not lashing out—will finally come back into vogue. Until then, in their minds, only the winner has to do the Reaching Out. If that sounds illogical, impractical, and idiotic, just remember that this idea comes from the same people who believe a country that can't even deliver the mail efficiently ought to organize and provide health care for all 300 million of us.

But for now, we can put our rational, logical beliefs down for a moment. We all have something important to do.

Now, get up from the computer.

Call your Democrat sister.

Tell her you still love her.

Reach Out.

With apologies to Dave Barry, the funniest writer alive and Originator of Writing Important Things in Capitals, and to Ann Coulter, who dances a lovely waltz along the fine line between bitter sarcasm and funny sarcasm.

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