Where Is Landrieu The Bipartisan?
by Sam Hanna, Jr., Publisher - The Ouachita Citizen (excerpt)

Back in 2008 when Sen. Mary Landrieu was running for re-election she told the people repeatedly that she had a proven record of working with the opposing party in the Congress. The opposing party, of course, would be the Republican Party.

There wasn't much (her opponent John) Kennedy could do. He had to roll with it while pointing out that Landrieu's voting record since she joined the Senate in January 1997 was far from what we would describe as moderate, or bipartisan, as she claimed. After all, Landrieu can be counted on to vote Democratic, or with the wishes of her party's leadership, when her vote is needed to pass or block legislation that's important to the liberal Democratic leadership in the Senate. So much for traditional Louisiana values.

According to published reports, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have decided to exclude Republicans from participating in talks to work out the differences between the health care bills the House and Senate passed prior to Christmas. Moreover, it appears Reid and Pelosi will take it a step further, meaning they apparently will forgo sending the health care bills to a conference committee comprised of members of both parties from the House and Senate. That's the norm when the House and Senate must hammer out differences in two pieces of legislation that pertain to the same issue.

Instead, Reid and Pelosi, in conjunction with the Obama administration, will craft a comprised health care bill behind closed doors for the House and Senate to vote on by the end of January or in early February. In other words, two of the most liberal members of the Congress will confer with officials who work for the most liberal administration in the history of the Republic to mold legislation that will affect roughly 300 million people residing in the United States. It's a liberal's dream come true.

Be that as it may, it's a bit odd that we haven't heard Landrieu express an opinion on Reid's and Pelosi's and the administration's plan to craft a "compromise" on health care reform in private without any input from Republican members of the House and Senate. I suppose we now know the truth about all of that talk about bipartisanship.