So much for uniting

Remember the pledge to be a “uniter, not a divider?” I think we all know now that Dubya’s promise was a load of crap. We’re more divided than ever, which is astonishing considering the potential for union that was displayed after September 11.
I’ve written here about the Republican plans to eliminate Democratic lobbyists from the halls of Congress — they refuse to allow access to any lobbyists with Democrats on staff, so Democrats are losing their jobs. Smacks of the discriminatory tactics of a certain political party that came to power in Europe in the 1930s.
Anyway, now they want law firms to create separate (but equal?) practices for Republican lawyers and Democratic lawyers:

Barbour Griffith & Rogers reported recently on its successes at raising funds for Republican candidates, “to keep and expand our Republican majority.”

In a Feb. 27 letter to Grover Norquist, one of the forces behind the “K Street Project” to track the party affiliations and contributions of lobbyists and campaign contributions, Jennifer Larkin Lukawski, director of legislative affairs at Barbour Griffith, noted that not only is the lobby shop all-Republican, but “[e]ven our receptionists are bona-fide Republicans.” (Of course, Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, is no longer at the firm, having won the governorship of Mississippi last year.)

“How much have we contributed or raised for the Democrats? Zero. Not one red cent. Not now, not ever [her emphasis],” she wrote.

Norquist, head of the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform, was happy with the Barbour Griffith report and said he hopes other lobby shops and law firms will do similar audits — presumably with the goal of rooting out Democratic tendencies.

He doesn’t believe in bipartisanship in the makeup of lobby shops. Even law firms, he said in an interview this week, should organize separate legislative practices by political party.

Republican and Democratic partners cannot credibly make common pitches to GOP lawmakers or administration officials, Norquist said.

A single-party lobby shop is “a better business model and everyone has more self-esteem,” he said.