Does Hillary Clinton Need More Republican Daddies In Her Administration? (SPOILER: LOL No.)

In addition to whatever else the state can prove, Ben Wittes’s call for a government of national unity was guilty of bad timing:

On a practical level, a government of national unity means on Clinton’s side putting more than the expected number of Republicans in her cabinet and, on the Republican side, a willingness to serve in that cabinet. An astonishing number of Republican former senior officials of the top notch have very publicly joined this coalition. Some have done so by endorsing Clinton. Some have done so by resisting the pressure to back their own party’s ticket. The more Clinton can engage these democratic elements of the Right, the better. This should be easy in the national security field, where the differences between the responsible elements of the parties just isn’t that great. But it should be the ambition across the board.

Mr. Comey has, at least, done us the favor of providing dispositive evidence that the idea that Hillary Clinton can unilaterally create bipartisanship or that a Democratic president can earn points with Republicans by appointing Republicans to important executive branch jobs is to enter a land of fantasia. But, really, this should have been obvious before Comley’s procedurally and substantively indefensible intervention into the election. As Wittes half-admits while arguing that Clinton should re-nominate him anyway, Merrick Garland is another example of how pre-compromising doesn’t accomplish anything. Whatever the merits of bipartisan cooperation, that ship has left the port and been around the world a dozen times. It’s over. The fact that a small minority of Republican elites oppose Trump doesn’t mean they support Clinton.

Before the Comey scandal broke, Mark Tushnet raised another obvious point:

How might that happen? Well, in part by what I called gestures of reconciliation by Republicans in the Senate and the House. As to the Senate: Assume, as I do, that a President-elect Clinton sends a clear signal that she’s OK with Merrick Garland as a Supreme Court nominee. Senate Republicans could move forward with his confirmation immediately after receiving that signal, by scheduling a pro forma hearing and an immediate vote on the nomination. I suspect that there’s more that they could — and should — do to signal good faith in pursuing a government of national unity.

As to the House: I’ve suggested the possibility that there might be cross-party voting for the Speaker of the House — either (I assume) Paul Ryan soliciting votes from Democrats by proposing a formal power-sharing arrangement, knowing that he would lose votes from Republicans (and completely dash his hopes, if he has them, of being the Republican nominee for President in 2020) or, more interesting, Nancy Pelosi soliciting votes from Republicans by proposing a similar, though of course substantively different, power-sharing arrangement. I’m been persuaded that the structure of American politics makes such formal arrangements impossible.

But, without participation by the House and Senate, we wouldn’t have a real government of national unity. We’d have a government in which the President tries to govern from the middle out, and in which the Senate and or House continues to obstruct that effort.

We can discuss a government of national unity as soon Paul Ryan gives significant power to House Democrats and…OK, we can stop right here. I mean, really.