In this bizarre and twisted age we live in, the word partisan has become a curse word.  Republicans and Democrats trade shots of "partisan politics" on all the Sunday morning shows.  We wonder what they have in mind as an alternative, the politics of a group hug?

At the same time our body politic has grown more bitter and polarized than ever.  Increasingly, what matters most is not the rightness or wrongness of an argument but whose side you are on.  Just ask a Democrat about impeachment or a Republican about Dub-ya.

I suppose that would make what we are attempting to do seem Quixotic at best or obscene at worst:  We want to revive a genuine new American partisanship. That is, we want to be dedicated to two notions.

The first is that partisanship is nothing to be ashamed of.  Ideas shape the world around us and are thus worth fighting for.

The second is that America is nothing to  be ashamed of.  "My country, right or left,"  said George Orwell, and we think that he was on to something.  The thing that keeps partisanship from becoming a Clintonian pie in the face is our Americanism.

Don't come here looking for consensus, come here to be challenged.  Don't expect a particular brand of politics, we're more like a supermarket.  And lastly, don't EVER think you can win an argument with us by saying, "the American people disagree with you."

... because you will only invite the response, "Then the American people are wrong."

- - - The American Partisan