Broder's perverse comparison

Glenn Greenwald has a much more articulate and informative take on Broder's asinine column this morning than I was able to screech out earlier. And he makes a valuable point.

Beltway pundits have long been petrified of the reality that most Americans have turned against the President permanently and with deep conviction. Because the David Broders of the world propped up the Bush presidency for so long, they are deeply invested in finding a way to salvage it. They do this exactly the same way -- driven by the same motives and using the same methods -- that they refuse to accept the reality that the Iraq war which they cheered on and enabled is a profound failure, and are therefore intent on finding a way to salvage at least the apperance of success, if not the reality.

The collapse of Bush's approval ratings is not some isolated or fleeting event that can be reversed with a few magic tricks from Karl Rove. Americans who once vigorously supported the President have simply abandoned him over time. Contrary to Broder's desire (masquerading as belief), the contempt with which Americans regard the Bush Presidency is not some recent, fleeting, reversible phenomenon.

Typical of Broder's myopic view, he believes/hopes that Bush's performance in a press conference on a mid-week afternoon is going to salvage his presidency. This is based, moreover, on Broder's more basic belief that Americans are naturally "bipartisan" and that they went to the polls in November hoping to get Congress to work "together."

That is, of course, bullshit. Even here in the fair Nutmeg State that wasn't the case. Lieberman won because Republican voters in the state wanted to stick it to Democrats and enough Independents were led to believe that Lamont is a communist who would close the sub base. But I digress.

Broder's column underscores another point about the blindness of the punditocracy in Washington. Specifically, his comparison of Bush and Clinton illustrates a basic misunderstanding of how Clinton and Bush are perceived by people living outside of the District and its Virginian suburbs. For the Washington establishment, Clinton was never considered "legitimate." So they could never fathom how Clinton's popularity did not plummet in 1994 when someone named “Newt” came to power and nakedly tried to wrest power and prestige from the president. They were even more shocked ("where's the outrage?” they howled) when the Lewinsky sideshow opened and Impeachment proceedings began and Clinton's popularity rose in response. Broder still doesn't get it, indicating in his column that it was somehow Clinton's rhetoric that "salvaged" his administration. He and his fellows never grasped that Clinton maintained his popularity because, despite a minority of deranged Clinton haters, many of whom were writing for The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, most of the country basically liked him. His popularity rose during Impeachment because the voters thought impeachment for an act of adultery was batshit insane.

On the other hand we have Bush. Bush is an insider, despite the Texas twang, and he's part of a clan that is nothing if "legitimate," at least from the standpoint of guys like Broder. For six years we've heard a constant refrain that those who have expressed displeasure with George W. Bush's actions, let alone his imperial demeanor, are driven by nothing more than irrational Bush hatred. We are simply a small minority of dirty fucking hippies driven insane by the "loss" of the 2000 election, frustrated by the "brilliant" machinations of Karl Rove, and embracing a pacifist loathing for Iraq.

Broder thinks Bush still has a chance to save his presidency because he doesn't understand that, unlike Clinton, Bush's unpopularity has been growing for the past two years. Whether it was the obvious deterioration of the situation in Iraq, the outing of a CIA operative for political purposes, Katrina, or all of the above, a growing majority of Americans realize that Bush is not merely incompetent, but that he doesn't care that he's incompetent.

Broder can dream his little Beltway dream that Bush is reaching across the aisles by "depersonalizing" politics with the Democratic majority (he meets with them...face to face!). He can imagine that, surely, Karl Rove has something up his sleeve. He can parrot pro-war talking points that the Democrats' "core constituency (aka ‘dirty fucking hippies’)" want to withhold "support for the troops" by defunding the costly catastrophuk that is our Iraqi adventure. He can do all of that, but nothing is going to change the ever-emerging realization that the Bush administration is the "perfect storm" of ineptitude, patronage, and bloody-minded ideology that is damaging our country and destroying what's left of our reputation.