Thomas Friedman on what Bush could have/should have said regarding energy, and then Paul Krugman on when we’re likely to see bipartisanship. First Mr. Friedman:

Sorry to repeat myself, but I have the same reaction to this year’s energy proposals in the State of the Union that I had to last year’s. President Bush had the opportunity to launch America on a transformative new path for clean, efficient power. He had a chance for a “Nixon to China” moment — as the Texas oilman who leads us into a greener future. Instead, he gave us “Nixon to New Mexico” — right direction, but not nearly far enough.

As I read the president’s remarks, listened to the tepid public reaction and looked at his latest polls, which show Mr. Bush to be wildly unpopular, it seemed to me that the American people basically fired George Bush in the last election. We’re now just watching him clean out his desk. Both his energy proposals and his recent Iraq surge were about the best he could muster, given his pink slip.

The problem is that he is going to be cleaning out his desk for another two years, and Americans deserve better. I would love to see Democrats put that something better on Mr. Bush’s desk — regarding both energy and Iraq.

“The stakes on Iraq and on climate change are way too large for us all to be just couch potatoes waiting for the messiah to come in 2009,” said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. “That is not an option. Yes, it would be entertaining, but we need leadership on these issues, and we need it now.”

On energy — no, the president’s proposals were not just beanbag. His call to reform CAFE mileage standards for U.S. cars “shifts the debate from whether to compel U.S. automakers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles to how much they should do so,” notes a strategy consultant, Peter Schwartz. And his call for a nearly fivefold mandatory increase in the production of ethanol and other alternative fuels for cars and trucks also changes the debate from whether to how much, and which fuels.

But the devil will be in the details. Will liquefied coal be one of those alternatives — which could add to global warming — or only non-fossil-fuel alternatives? On mileage standards, U.S. automakers will lobby the White House very hard for the smallest possible change. Will they get their way? If so, there isn’t much here.

The really bold, transformative — and popular — initiative Mr. Bush should have offered would either be a national cap-and-trade system for controlling CO2 emissions by utilities, manufacturers and autos, or a carbon tax. Both would create economic incentives for us to get rid of appliances, buildings and cars that emit a lot of CO2 and to invent and purchase those that don’t.

But there is no reason that the Democrats could not right now put a cap-and-trade bill on Mr. Bush’s desk themselves by spring, Mr. Krupp said, “and I think Bush would sign it.”

It is not enough for Democrats to just hold hearings on climate change. They need to use their new power to change the climate. Not only would the public be with them, but so would big business. A coalition of America’s best companies — like General Electric, DuPont, Duke Energy, Alcoa, Caterpillar — and environmentalists just issued a “call to action” for a national cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

On Iraq: talking to some of our senior military lately, I’ve been struck by how concerned they are about the new Bush buildup against Iran. Before we have even won one war in Iraq, the Bush team seems to be courting another with Iran. I am all for brandishing the stick with Iran, but it should be for the purpose of gaining leverage for a diplomatic dialogue with Iran and Syria about Iraq.

“When your house is burning, you don’t go looking to start a fire in the next house,” said Vali Nasr, author of the “The Shia Revival.” Right now, he adds, everything should be subordinated to trying to salvage Iraq.

Let the troop surge be accompanied and reinforced by what the Baker-Hamilton commission proposed: a regional conference that puts Syria, Iran, Jordan and Saudi Arabia around a table with Iraqis to try to stabilize the place. And that requires that America brandish carrots and sticks with all the parties. If a real regional conference doesn’t work, then Democrats who want to just set a date to withdraw will have an even stronger case because we will truly have tried everything. But let’s try everything: a surge of diplomacy, not just troops.

Let the Democrats put that on the president’s desk. Just as the business community would support a real climate initiative, I think the U.S. military would support a real diplomatic conference. Bush gave America’s voters the reasons to fire him. Democrats need to give voters the reasons to hire them — for the long haul.

And now Paul Krugman on the state of American politics.

American politics is ugly these days, and many people wish things were different. For example, Barack Obama recently lamented the fact that “politics has become so bitter and partisan” — which it certainly has.

But he then went on to say that partisanship is why “we can’t tackle the big problems that demand solutions. And that’s what we have to change first.” Um, no. If history is any guide, what we need are political leaders willing to tackle the big problems despite bitter partisan opposition. If all goes well, we’ll eventually have a new era of bipartisanship — but that will be the end of the story, not the beginning.

Or to put it another way: what we need now is another F.D.R., not another Dwight Eisenhower.

You see, the nastiness of modern American politics isn’t the result of a random outbreak of bad manners. It’s a symptom of deeper factors — mainly the growing polarization of our economy. And history says that we’ll see a return to bipartisanship only if and when that economic polarization is reversed.

After all, American politics has been nasty in the past. Before the New Deal, America was a nation with a vast gap between the rich and everyone else, and this gap was reflected in a sharp political divide. The Republican Party, in effect, represented the interests of the economic elite, and the Democratic Party, in an often confused way, represented the populist alternative.

In that divided political system, the Democrats probably came much closer to representing the interests of the typical American. But the G.O.P.’s advantage in money, and the superior organization that money bought, usually allowed it to dominate national politics. “I am not a member of any organized party,” Will Rogers said. “I am a Democrat.”

Then came the New Deal. I urge Mr. Obama — and everyone else who thinks that good will alone is enough to change the tone of our politics — to read the speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the quintessential example of a president who tackled big problems that demanded solutions.

For the fact is that F.D.R. faced fierce opposition as he created the institutions — Social Security, unemployment insurance, more progressive taxation and beyond — that helped alleviate inequality. And he didn’t shy away from confrontation.

“We had to struggle,” he declared in 1936, “with the old enemies of peace — business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. ... Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred.”

It was only after F.D.R. had created a more equal society, and the old class warriors of the G.O.P. were replaced by “modern Republicans” who accepted the New Deal, that bipartisanship began to prevail.

The history of the last few decades has basically been the story of the New Deal in reverse. Income inequality has returned to levels not seen since the pre-New Deal era, and so have political divisions in Congress as the Republicans have moved right, once again becoming the party of the economic elite. The signature domestic policy initiatives of the Bush administration have been attempts to undo F.D.R.’s legacy, from slashing taxes on the rich to privatizing Social Security. And a bitter partisan gap has opened up between the G.O.P. and Democrats, who have tried to defend that legacy.

What about the smear campaigns, like Karl Rove’s 2005 declaration that after 9/11
liberals wanted to “offer therapy and understanding for our attackers”? Well, they’re reminiscent of the vicious anti-Catholic propaganda used to defeat Al Smith in 1928: smear tactics are what a well-organized, well-financed party with a fundamentally unpopular domestic agenda uses to change the subject.

So am I calling for partisanship for its own sake? Certainly not. By all means pass legislation, if you can, with plenty of votes from the other party: the Social Security Act of 1935 received 77 Republican votes in the House, about the same as the number of Republicans who recently voted for a minimum wage increase.

But politicians who try to push forward the elements of a new New Deal, especially universal health care, are sure to face the hatred of a large bloc on the right — and they should welcome that hatred, not fear it.