Mr. Fielding has a nuanced record on executive privilege and partisan confrontation.

Mr. Bentsen has tended to avoid partisan confrontations with Congressional Republicans.

But full attendance for the next vote will not necessarily change the outcome of what has become a highly partisan confrontation.

Is there any truth to the claim that partisan political-cultural confrontation is the function of art?

The partisan confrontation escalated over the committee's investigation of President Clinton's 1996 campaign fund-raising.

He argued, instead, for a more limited bill and an effort to "avoid partisan confrontation."

But Republicans shied away from the partisan confrontation, asking in a party caucus for Mr. Lott once again to request a bipartisan caucus.

Both parties, they said, were aware of voter disgust with partisan confrontations.

The stakes in these partisan confrontations go beyond the fate of individual bills.

In fighting is far more familiar to the average American politician than is partisan confrontation.