On politics: Why not blame partisan politics?

It is the last resort and the crybaby retort of political losers everywhere — to blame partisan politics for their failures.

Despite the fact that our democracy is built around it, partisan politics gets the blame for all manner of public policy and political deficiencies from politicians all too willing to put a “D” or an “R” by their names. Oh, the irony.

In today’s political climate, such disclaimers blaming the system are becoming all too frequent. The disingenuousness of these claims is in direct correlation to that growing frequency.

In the late hours of the recently closed session of the Tennessee General Assembly, partisan politics was blamed by a man who never once apologized for keeping a “D” by his name for four decades.

Former Lt. Gov. John Wilder in his final hours as a state senator ended his political career with a whimper. I am going to go the opposite direction from all of the platitudes and praise heaped upon Wilder by other writers as he left the Senate. Yes, he was once a powerful presence in this state during his time. The problem was that he tried to extend those salad days about a decade too long and in the process became an incredibly ineffective steward of state government and his own party.

Wilder and his supporters in the Senate blamed partisan politics when Senate Republicans, who now control the chamber, shut down Wilder’s attempts to do an end run around a committee action that killed one of his “legacy” pieces of legislation. Wilder lost the battle in committee to see his “Tennessee Plan” for judicial selection continued, and the set of state laws empowering the Tennessee Judicial Selection Commission are now in a year-long wind down mode.

Wilder attempted to bring the legislation directly to the floor of the Senate, something as Senate Speaker he cautioned generations of senators never to do. Following Wilder’s own advice, the Senate Republicans shut him down on the floor.

Partisan politics was to blame, said Senate Democrats apparently feeling embarrassed for their deposed leader. Wilder also intimated the same, telling Senate Republicans amid the fight on the floor that partisan politics have never been his way.

Yet, in the months following the indictments and shame of the federal Tennessee Waltz bribery scandal, Wilder refused to politically leave the side of fellow Democratic senators facing federal jail time and a mound of very tight, convincing evidence against them. Even as guilty pleas and sentences for involved parties began to mount, Wilder never really distanced himself or the State Senate from the charged Democratic lawmakers.

Legislative insiders would say this was the mercurial Wilder’s inherent love for the Senate getting the best of him. To the average person, it looked very much like partisan politics — a partisan leader standing beside embattled fellow partisans despite good sense and a mountain of credible evidence.

To Wilder and Senate Democrats, the actions of the Senate Republicans on Wilder’s final day looked overtly partisan. Yet, to Senate Republicans, they were simply following the good legislative form taught to them by the body’s former speaker.

Partisanship, it seems, is often in the eye of the beholder.