Figaro Isn't Bi. He's Non.

For Obama, bipartisanship means good-faith outreach to the other party, a genuine consideration of their ideas, and incorporation of those ideas that both parties agree on. But the starting point is what Democrats want. Republicans’ definition of bipartisanship is starting at zero and building from there. In other words, the two parties begin on equal footing.

Christopher Beam in Slate

oxymoron (oxy-MOR-on), the contradiction in terms. From the Greek, meaning “sharp dullness.”

The ancients Greeks, those witty chaps, made their term for an oxymoron … an oxymoron! (By “sharp dullness” they meant “cleverly stupid,” not “old knife that can give you tetanus.”) 

“Bipartisanship” is sharply dull, all right. Let’s take it apart.

In a democracy, “partisanship means “along party lines.” As in, “I’m voting for this even though it doesn’t make any sense, simply because I’m a (circle one) [Democrat] [Republican].”

“Bi,” when not used by adolescent males, means “two.”

Put them together and the meaning becomes, “People who detest each other singing ‘Kumbaya’ for the cameras.” When people go beyond party lines and actually accomplish something—Figaro is old enough to remember when that actually happened in Washington—the effort is not bipartisan but nonpartisan.

Meaning: Abstinence from party. Not some bi fantasy.