Retard

The Dean of the Washington Press Corps, unlike 70% of the country, thinks Sarah Palin and her "anti-elitist" message is just what the country needs.

Palin's final answer to Wallace showed how perfectly she has come to inhabit that part. When he asked her what role she wants to play in the country's future, she said:

"First and foremost, I want to be a good mom, and I want to raise happy, healthy, independent children. And I want them to be good citizens of this great country.

"And then I do want to be a voice for some common-sense solutions. I'm never going to pretend like I know more than the next person. I'm not going to pretend to be an elitist. In fact, I'm going to fight the elitist, because for too often and for too long now, I think the elitists have tried to make people like me and people in the heartland of America feel like we just don't get it, and big government's just going to have to take care of us.

"I want to speak up for the American people and say: No, we really do have some good common-sense solutions. I can be a messenger for that. Don't have to have a title to do it."

This is a pitch-perfect recital of the populist message that has worked in campaigns past. There are times when the American people are looking for something more: for an Eisenhower, who liberated Europe; an FDR or a Kennedy or a Bush, all unashamed aristocrats; or an Obama, with eloquence and brains.

[...]

Palin did not wear well in the last campaign, especially in the suburbs where populism has a limited appeal. But when Wallace asked her about resigning the governorship with 17 months left in her term and whether she let her opponents drive her from office, she said, "Hell, no."

Those who want to stop her will need more ammunition than deriding her habit of writing on her hand. The lady is good.

Jeebus.

Don't fuck with The Dean

Harry Reid's grave mistake.

And, yes, Reid criticized my friend and colleague David Broder. It’s true that Reid was hitting back, since David is not wild about Harry. Nonetheless, I dearly love Broder, as does everyone who has ever worked with him.

Via.

David Broder's America

That answer would be, "yes."

UPDATE: Broder's apologies for Dick Cheney's violation of the law reminded me of what might be called The Broder Pattern, as Erik Alterman wrote last year:

Sadly, Broder's decision to avert his eyes from the distasteful and potentially criminal actions of his government is not exceptional; it's how he defines his job. Forty years ago he scolded those in the Democratic Party who challenged Lyndon Johnson's lies about Vietnam as "degrading...to those involved." Twenty years ago he attacked independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's investigation into criminal wrongdoing in the Iran/Contra scandal. (Reagan had mused that he would likely be impeached should his extraconstitutional actions ever be discovered.) Broder supported Republican efforts to impeach Bill Clinton, whose behavior he deemed "worse" than Richard Nixon's police-state tactics during Watergate because Nixon's actions, "however neurotic and criminal, were motivated and connected to the exercise of presidential power." There is a pattern here, obviously. When a president abuses his constitutional warmaking powers, he can depend on Broder not only to defend his crimes but to attack those who would hold him accountable. This, in the eyes of perhaps the most honored and admired journalist today, is the proper function of the press in a democracy.

According to Broder, lies in the service of presidential power -- and torture! -- are acceptable means of Executive branch governance. A lie in the course of a civil court case that should never have been permitted to be brought against a sitting president is "worse" than Nixon's compiling of enemy lists, using the IRS to attack perceived enemies, covering up the break in of the Democratic National Committee, taking solicited and unreported cash in paper bags for his reelection campaign, and, oh yeah, secretly carpet bombing Cambodia and Laos, are essential tools of a wartime president. So Saith the Dean.

The wrath of the DFHs

Oh nos. David Broder is complimenting Obama...for defying the hysterical left who elected him, of course.

Some adaptation is necessary for almost every president because few experiences can really prepare them for the challenges Obama described to Meacham. George W. Bush went through it after Sept. 11, 2001, subordinating his domestic agenda to focus on the terrorist threat -- and never changing.

But the step is harder for today's Democratic presidents than for their predecessors -- or their Republican contemporaries.

Ever since Vietnam, the prevailing ideology of grass-roots Democratic activists has been hostile to American military actions and skeptical of the military itself. Iowa, where the Democratic nomination process begins, is famously tilted toward a pacifist view of war. Throughout the primaries, the pressures push forward candidates who do not challenge that mind-set.

That was certainly the case last year, when Obama's best-credentialed challengers -- Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd -- all stumbled over their votes to authorize Bush's use of force in Iraq.

The second reason Democrats struggle more with becoming commander in chief is that they have more things than do Republicans that they want to accomplish here at home. Time and money are always in short supply. The bigger the domestic agenda, the more resistance to being "diverted" into military adventures. Obama, like all his Democratic predecessors, has set big goals. Afghanistan has to look like a distraction to him.

And a third reason is that today's Democrats really are isolated from the military. Harry Truman had been an artillery captain; John Kennedy and Carter, Navy officers. But Bill Clinton did everything possible to avoid the draft, and Obama, motivated as he was to public service, never gave a thought to volunteering for the military.

Where, oh where, to begin?

Let's start with George W. Bush diverting attention from domestic "priorities" after 9-11. George W. Bush had two domestic priorities at the start of 2001: tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and passage of no child left behind, both of which he accomplished. I challenge anyone to name me another priority for his first term, anything left undone. His second term, of course, made privatizing social security a priority, which went almost as well as the guarding of the Iraqi National Museum. Looters were poised for privatization, just as looters were waiting for the US military to divert their attention to the Oil Ministry. The only thing being diverted after 9-11 for his administration was a priority for capturing al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Instead, attention was diverted to connecting al Qaeda to Iraq.

Second, the fact that Democrat candidates had trouble explaining away their votes for authorizing military action in Iraq had nothing -- nothing -- to do with "hostility towards the military." As I recall, we lefties were quite supportive of military action in Kosova and, notably, Afghanistan; that support may not have been unanimous, but it was real. No, the difficulties Biden, Clinton, Dodd and (though unnamed since this isn't about haircuts or infidelity) Edwards had explaining their Iraq votes were the result of how stupid it was to invade Iraq and the subsequent clusterfuck that was the Bush administration's actions there.

I'm guessing that when Broder writes the incomprehensible phrase, that Iowa "is famously tilted towards a pacificist view of war" (WTF is a "pacifist view of war"?), he is referring to 1968, when the anti-war candidate Gene McCarthy "famously" upset President Johnson in New Hampshire. In 1972, anti-war candidate McGovern lost to Muskie in Iowa.

And, finally, the last paragraph cited above is really indefensible. Bill Clinton did everything possible to avoid the draft. Sure. His efforts pale in comparison to Dick "I had other priorities" Cheney. George W. Bush's exploites during the Vietnam War are, of course, legendary. Those two war heroes defeated Al Gore and John Kerry, both of whom served -- the latter with distinction -- in Vietnam. Perhaps, Broder might consider, Obama's community service in Chicago was more valuable than whatever service he may have provided the good people of Grenada.

UPDATE: Roy, as usual, is the ideal antidote for such bullshit.

The Dean

The day after zero, zilch, nada, no House Republicans crossed the aisle to vote for the stimulus bill*, the Dean of Bi-partisan Beltway Consensus elected to write about...Rod Blagojevich's media strategy.

In trawling around the Internets with respect to this post, I came across this gem from Broder's oeuvre:

If ever a candidacy needed bolstering, it was this one. And based on what she showed against Biden, Palin might be able to deliver some help.

* Not that I blame them.

David Broder typed this in the garage with the car running

Shorter Dean of Washington: Voters will punish them if Democrats in Congress don't give Senate Republicans what they want.

Among the "key measures" counted in the news release are voice votes to protect infants from unsafe cribs and high chairs, and votes to require drain covers in pools and spas. Such wins bulk up the statistics. Many other "victories" credited to the House were later undone by the Senate, including all the restrictions on the deployment of troops in Iraq. And on 46 of the measures passed by the House, more than one-third of the total, the notation is added, "The president has threatened to veto," or has already vetoed, the bill.

One would think that this high level of institutional warfare would be of concern to the Democrats. But there is no suggestion in this recital that any adjustment to the nation's priorities may be required. If Pelosi is to be believed, the Democrats will keep challenging the Bush veto strategy for the remaining 12 months of his term -- and leave it up to him to make any compromises.

Yes, he wrote that.

Broder, seems blissfully unaware that Democrats "control" the Senate 50-49-1 and Republicans have, basically, filibustered every bill until it met their requirements, whether it meant unfettered power for the president, non-regulation of pretty much everything, torture, etc. He seems even less sentient when he writes, "leave it up to him to make any compromises." Bush has never compromised and he's got 50 loyal boot lickers in the Senate, including Joe Lieberman.

But that's the Democrats' fault.

The long-haired, pot-smoking senator from South Dakota

Geez, I learn today that the Dean of the Washington Punditocracy has been singing the same, out-of-tune song for nearly four decades. And it wasn't any more coherent then, when it was fresh, than it is today.

Over the last few years, a false, simplified picture of American politics has been superimposed on the political realities. The rigid formulas and clichés that make up this false picture are familiar – all too familiar – to everybody. We are speaking of that view which divides all Americans into two groups – the wild men who oppose government policies and the responsible people who support government policies. On the one hand, the young, long-haired, loud-mouthed, pot-smoking extremists, on the other hand, the old, short-haired, reserved, cigar-smoking Establishmentarians. Abby Hoffman versus Mayor Daley. One of the people who fit the clichés least well is Senator McGovern. Senator McGovern takes a strong position against the war, yet his manner and temperament -- or "style" as these things are called – are notable for their steadiness and calm. This combination of content and "style" throws many political observers into confusion, because, according to the accepted beliefs of the day, anyone who opposes the war as forcefully as Senator McGovern does is bound to be an inflammatory, somewhat hysterical figure. Many commentators have run headlong into the horns of this apparent dilemma. One of the most recent casualties was David S. Broder, of the Washington Post, who wrote an article called "The Aspirants' Style," in which he compared the "styles" of Senator Muskie and Senator McGovern. Mr. Broder wrote that "McGovern's instinct is to pounce on an issue, Muskie's is to ponder it. Muskie's judgments seem more impressive, in part because they come rumbling up in that throbbing bass of his, while McGovern delivers his opinions in the voice of a tenor choirboy. But McGovern's are a darn sight plainer. There are many who suspect that in the end clarity may be McGovern's undoing....[sic] The prevailing wisdom in the Democratic Party is that Muskie's big-daddy moderation is more in keeping with the mood of the country than McGovern's brash-sounding prairie radicalism." But just a few sentences after referring to Senator McGovern as "brash-sounding," Mr. Broder assures us that McGovern isn't "the soft, sweet, simple clergyman's son he appears." In fact, Mr. Broder goes on, "he has an instinct for the political jugular and a talent for finding an issue." In conclusion, Mr. Broder says, "Given Muskie's lumbering caution, maybe it's well he has a terrier-like McGovern at his heels." What we seem to have here is a head-on collision of two clichés. On the one hand, because of his views, McGovern's "style" is seen as "brash-sounding" and "terrier-like." On the other hand, because of his quiet behavior, it is seen as appearing "soft, sweet, simple." Put it all together and you've got the soft, terrier-like, sweet, brash-sounding, simple tenor choirboy who represents the radical prairie state of South Dakota.

-Jonathan Schell, The New Yorker, February 13, 1971

It's interesting to dig through the rubble of the political establishment to see what was then on the verge of collapsing and find that Broder's instincts, even then, were to place the "aspirants' style" over their content on the single greatest issue of the day -- whether to end a war that was destroying or displacing millions of Vietnamese and killing tens of thousands of U.S. troops. One should never voice opposition to the president too loudly, or else risk being labelled a Dirty Fucking Hippy. Things haven't changed with Broder, even though Abby Hoffman is dead.