Who Invented (Nasty) Partisanship?

George Washington warned us about this—that is, the dangers to our form of government from “factions,” the term he used for parties, and cited a “frightful despotism” when they alternate power one after the other and extract vengeance for slights real and perceived while out of power.
Those founders—they were giants. What do we have now? Midgets, that is what we have, mental midgets to be more precise. Factionalism, that party first mentality has taken over and we the people suffer for it.
When did it start, the party first mentality? A few examples place this problem in the hands of the Democrats with the mention of just two names: Robert Bork and John Tower. These were two men nominated by Presidents for important positions in government.
Judge Robert Bork was nominated by Ronald Reagan to be a Supreme Court Justice in the seat vacated by Justice Lewis Powell. Within the hour after his nomination, Sen. Ted Kennedy was orating on the Senate floor in a famous stem-winder of a speech throwing out threats of returning to a time of back alley abortions, renewed racial segregation, and general Gestapo tactics by the government. You know, jack-booted thugs beating down doors in the middle of the night like we just had with the current Bush, at least in online rants if never in reality.
Incidentally, Democrat operatives massively invaded Bork’s privacy by going over his video rentals hoping but failing to find some good dirt there and which led to more laws to protect Americans from (Democrats’) secret police tactics. At any rate, the Democrats held together and denied this nomination to Reagan and a new verb came into use thereafter—to Bork. .
In the other case former Texas Senator John Tower was to be Secretary of Defense in the first Bush administration, but Democrats were angry about losing the 1988 election, even though this was what loser Michael Dukakis helped to achieve. Still they blamed Bush and his campaign, with the key factor seen as paroled murderer Willie Horton, a gift from Democrats’ opposition research that Bush’s team used in the general election. At any rate, Tower was a drinker, a shocking thing about a current or former Senator. Also he was a womanizer, another shocking and disqualifying factor, despite his years of service in government in military matters, particularly in the Vietnam War time, and something Democrat President Lyndon Johnson appreciated in his time in office. The information came from Tower’s ex-wife, a woman with an ax to grind and the Democrats used it for grist in their mill of personal destruction.
But Johnson was not a rabid partisan since results were what he wanted, not open warfare in the halls of Congress. And he certainly knew the halls of Congress.
And rabid partisanship is pretty much where we are just now. Rabid partisanship is seen in every budget. How many know the conference committees were Democrat-only in many instances. They “forget” to invite the Republicans and do not publicize where they are meeting. Sometimes Republican Congressmen have the nerve to knock on the door and ask admittance, only to be told their input is not needed.
Sounds like a bunch of petty and arrogant partisan mental midgets to me. The only interest is their own interests—self-enrichment or even some pet political issues, but never the good of our country.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the people who blather on about their lives in public service were actually serving the people of our nation and not their party or themselves?