The drive for a softer gentler brand of politics will be put to the test this week as the House gears up for HR-2, the bill to repeal health care reform. In anticipation of heated debate, a spokesman for Republican Whip, Eric Cantor, said that Republicans want a thoughtful discussion about substantive policy differences, and Republican leaders say that they are working to keep the debate from degenerating into a shouting match. In that spirit, it would be nice to see the Republicans change the name of the bill, currently called ''Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act''. In the days following the Tucson shootings, Speaker of the House John Boehner has been careful to refer to it as ''job destroying'' or ''job crushing'' or ''doing something bad to jobs that doesn't involve using the word 'killing''', despite numerous reports from independent and centrist analysts and think tanks that say the impact of the health care reform bill on jobs would be minimal. Which isn't to say that it's a perfect law - it's not. And there are genuine disagreements, most notably about the appropriate role of the federal government in a market based economy. These things should be debated, but it would be nice to see such debate without misleading rhetoric that unfairly calls into question the motives of the opposition.
Ultimately, however, any change to the political tone depends not on Congress but on us. Politicians use incendiary language because we respond to it, and often emulate it in private conversations, on internet message boards, TV and radio talk shows and elsewhere in civic life. The surest way to get our elected officials to stop driving wedges into American society is to stop rewarding them for doing it so well.
