Partisan Democrats?

The Yellow Dog Democrat has two very good pieces analyzing the partisanship of Republican voting in the U.S. Senate.

The first is here:

Today's follow-up is here:

The bottom line is that for all the Republicans' bellyaching this week about Harry Reid's shutdown maneuver, the Republican Senate--including its supposedly moderate wing--has given Democrats absolutely zilch in the way of bipartisan cooperation. 80% of Democratic sponsored bills--many of them amendments--have been swatted down by the Republican majority, and most with near unanimous Republican solidarity.

The YDD derives from this that Republicans don't have anything to bitch about when it comes to "bipartisanship" or "cooperation" or "courtesy".

What I draw from these statistics, in addition, is that the so-called "moderate" group of Republicans is a myth. They may talk a good game, occasionally, about wanting to hold the administration accountable or of wanting to do good by the American people, but their voting undermines their claims. You might want to remember the pattern of voting among "moderate" Republican senators when Chuck Hagel and John McCain come calling for independent and Democratic votes in 2008.

Thanks to MahaBlog for the link.