The New D.C.: Same As It Ever Was

The following from Politico:

So much for post-partisanship.

“They’re not interested in building anything. Their only goal is seek and destroy. You can’t have bipartisanship with only one side,” said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). “Once we put them back in the minority, they’ve gone back to the Gingrich model.”

The tooth-and-nail scrapping among legislators makes clear that, Obama era or not, almost everyone in office is still considered fair game.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged Tuesday that House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-Wisc.) failed to divulge that his son Craig was lobbying him on the economic recovery package, while Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) offered a resolution calling on House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) to step down from his post while an ethics probe into his personal finances continues.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) put the shoe on the other foot, of course.

“Despite our repeated attempts to work with President Obama and the Democrat Majority, Speaker Pelosi has refused to meet with us, or even include us in key negotiations, choosing instead to stick with a pork-filled bill that even members of her own party do not support,” he said in a statement.

While Obama himself has made highly-publicized overtures aimed at building broader support for the stimulus plan, when those failed to build Republican support he too has played the old politics, even while preaching a new brand.

In his first White House press conference Monday, Obama didn’t hesitate to go on the offensive when discussing Republican objections to his spending plan.

But at the same news conference, Obama again sounded a post-partisan note, suggesting that even as the players around him had all but given up on a new approach, he still hadn’t.

[H]