I liked this from Stanley Fish on the emptiness of "bipartisanship:"

the phrase “common ground” is trickier than might first appear, for there are (at least) two kinds of common ground – one philosophical and one pragmatic – and the odds of success will change dramatically depending on which you are hoping to find. If you are seeking the philosophical version of common ground, you have entered a conversation that has been going on for thousands of years. The aim of that conversation is to identify the values or needs all men and women share simply by virtue of being human.

Countries, customs, economies and political systems differ greatly, but if there were something common to all of them – something cross-cultural or even trans-cultural – it could serve as the basis of cooperation even between those who disagree on almost everything. Even in the midst of conflict that appears to hold out no hope of resolution, the gridlock (one of our favorite words these days) could be broken if the warring parties reminded themselves that although they are divided on many issues, something basic unites them. Invoking “the welfare of the American people” (or some other facile piety) won’t do it, because what best promotes that welfare is precisely what people are arguing about. It has to be something at once deeper and more precise, something with an appeal so universal that merely to name it is enough to get combatants to lay down their swords and beat them into plowshares.

What Broder and Lieberman and Klein and Obama think is by merely invoking "common ground" and "bipartisanship" you have done something meaningful. Anyone not an idiot knows this is nonsense. Lieberman and Obama certainly know this. I doubt Broder does. Klein may not either. It is just political posturing. The essential emptiness of Broder-ism, Lieberman-ism and Obama-ism.