Apparently according to the Democratic National Committee and the Obama administration, when someone reaches their hand across the ideological aisle the appropriate reaction is to grab their hand, spin them around and stab them in the back. That's the spirit of bipartisanship that greeted former Republican presidential candidate and Senator Bob Dole when he tried to meet the administration halfway on health care reform.

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Speaking at a summit on health care Mr. Dole said, "I don’t agree with everything Obama is presenting, but we’ve go to do something." He went on to characterize health care reform as "one of the most important measures members of Congress will vote on in their lifetimes." While he stated his opposition to a government-run plan to compete with private insurers, Mr. Dole did release a statement with former Democratic Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, acknowledging that the various reform bills in Congress are flawed but "provide some basis on which Congress can move forward." (source)

Within hours of those comments, the Democratic National Committee was hard at work creating a television ad that featured Mr. Dole advocating in general terms for health care reform and depicting current GOP leaders as "siding with the insurance companies and just saying no to insurance reform." (source)

Mr. Dole reacted strongly to his efforts on behalf of a bipartisan solution being used for such a partisan attack and he objected strongly to the ad's attempt to imply he endorsed any specific existing legislation when he clearly does not. The DNC agreed to pull the ad after Mr. Dole contacted White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel but President Obama, the man who promised he'd be a post-partisan president, still cited Mr. Dole as a supporter of his health care reform ideas in his weekly radio address on Saturday.