Patters

I think I like this. What's interesting is good-government moderates seem to be asserting themselves. Though I'm not a fan of most of the people cited in the article, I do like this move. Who knows? Maybe Obama will help Domenici understand the many benefits of liberalism!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031101517.html

Kumbaya moments on the Hill! Republicans and Democrats, sitting together, holding hands in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and ranking Republican Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) wrote to lawmakers Friday to tell them that during hearings, "we will no longer sit with the Democrats on one side of the . . . dais and the Republicans on the other. We will have Democrats and Republicans sitting next to each other in assigned seats by seniority."

This is being done, they said, "in the interests of expressing the nonpartisanship of our committee and at the suggestion" of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a new member who, it turns out, would sit at the end of the dais under either configuration.

In a news release, Lieberman and Collins said Americans are sick of partisanship and gridlock: "They want us to work together and get things done. So, as a start, instead of sitting on opposite sides of the room like a house divided, we want the American people to see us sitting side by side."