It is well past time to send David Broder to pasture, where he can spend his days dribbling tapioca on his sweater vest while waxing eloquent about the good old days when Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan exchanged pleasantries after passing bills:
But the partisanship on both sides was a turnoff to independents. They were the people who had taken Obama seriously when he said he wanted to move Washington beyond the recriminations of the George W. Bush years. Regardless of their views on health care — or the economy or education or anything else — they are turned off by the inability of both parties to overcome their parochial concerns and agree on steps to curb the joblessness and debt that are consuming the country.
I’m just coming to the conclusion that David Broder and the independents he represent are either so hopped up on lithium and anti-depressants that they just have no clue what is going on around them or they are just completely politically unaware idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Or both.
It is particularly galling to me that anyone could watch the last two years and have a “pox on both houses” mentality. One side of this debate has been deceitful, disgusting, and downright disingenuous about everything. Hell, this Broder piece is published the day after Obama foolishly (in my mind) extended an olive branch to Republicans about coastal drilling, and… they rejected it.
Bipartisanship, Broder’s Rosebud, is dead, and it is pretty clear which side is to blame- the ones wielding the signs screaming Don’t Tread On Me from the Capitol Hill Balcony might be the place to start.
Barry
“I’m just coming to the conclusion that David Broder and the independents he represent are either so hopped up on lithium and anti-depressants that they just have no clue what is going on around them or they are just completely politically unaware idiots who shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Or both.”
Unless somebody comes up with a looooooooong list of paens to bipartisanship these guys published during the Bush II administration (where ‘bipartisanship’ did not mean slavishly obeying the Bush), I can’t come to that conclusion.
These guys’ ‘unawareness’ is so carefully one-sided that it’s clearly simple lying.
soonergrunt
I don’t think Broder ever was actually independent. His idea of bipartisanship has always been for Democrats to roll over.
Michael
Two points:
1. You can’t cure joblessness and fix the “allowed to crumble” physical, educational and health infrastructure while going spastic about debt. The fucking lazy ass parasites of the conservative right starved the beast to the point of madness, and this is the last fork in the road – do we go the direction of the EU and prosperity, or do we go into a pre-Peron Argentina, Second World mode.
2. The drilling ploy could be brilliant, as the fucking cretard, lazy ass and needing to be lined up and unceremoniously shot Texas oilboys already don’t drill what they’ve already got. “Drill baby drill” doesn’t exactly work on independents when this little fact is pointed out. Imagine the win in debates on this issue alone.
Ugh
True story: I was eating dinner in DC, David Broder sits down at a table nearby and orders a Martini. It arrives, he tastes it, and sends it back, saying it’s not dry enough. This occurs three more times, until he finally says, “There’s still Vermouth in this!”
Uh, dude, why not just ask for Gin and an olive?
He was completely pompous and entitled during the whole thing.
Ming
Fix’d.
Napoleon
@Barry:
Egg-zackly.
paradox
He’s always been a nauseating DC kiss-ass queen who can’t fight, fuck or run a footrace, let alone think and write. The only people who trust him are those he so fervently serves, it sure as hell isn’t the little people.
kansi
I hate that I have to oppose simply everything the Republicans think, say and do. I was recently challenged to name one thing or person on the right that I agreed with, and came up empty. So, naturally, my friends said I was dogmatic, unreasonable and not bipartisan enough.
PaulW
Oh, but in Bipartisanship World, you always have to blame both sides.
This is why the Republicans keep thinking they can’t ever lose.
El Cid
Hasn’t it been shown time and time again that most “independents” actually either settle into the camp of ‘strongly liberal’ / Democratic voting or ‘strongly conservative’ / Republican voting, and that the remaining ‘independents’ (i.e., amorphously confused) are a much smaller subset?
And, if so, is it only this tiny, ever-undeciding group which Broder considers ‘Real Americans’?
I mean, I know it’s all just a game for him like so many other pundits to just come up with more and more bullshit reasons to back the center-right-right / upper-class favoring policies he likes, but were you to take him at face value, is that what he’s suggesting?
david1234
I think Obama bears much of the blame for the lack of bipartisanship in Washington. He should of realized that when he said he wanted to work with the other side, Republicans would take it as a challenge and refuse to cooperate about anything. He should have said he would not allow the Republicans work with him. Then they would have done everything to prove him wrong.
Jude
“Broder’s Rosebud”?
The LAST thing I needed was to think about David Broder’s asshole. Thanks, Cole. You’re off my Xmas card list.
David
Broder’s whole schtick is Nostalgia Porn® now.
PeakVT
I’m just coming to the conclusion that David Broder and the independents he represent
The only group that Broder represents is the inside-the-DC-Beltway big media circle jerk.
Elvis Elvisberg
I only wish that GOP obstructionism was rooted in some sort of ideology. All we get from them is irrational hatred for the president and a conviction that a gridlocked, ineffective government will make America worse off, and encourage the voters to turn out the majority party.
El Cid, you are right: “true, honest-to-God independents are about 10% of the American population.”
Gregory
@Barry:
Oh, Broder published many paens to bipartisanship during the Bush II administration, but the common theme was that ‘bipartisanship’ meant slavishly obeying Bush.
Shorter Broder during the Bush II years: Why oh why won’t the Democrats accept the majority Republicans’ agenda?
Shorter Broder during the Obama years: Why oh why won’t the Democrats accept the minority Republicans’ agenda?
arguingwithsignposts
I don’t think Broder represents anyone but hizownself on most of the tripe he writes.
jrg
Where the fuck was David Broder when Jim DeMint came out and declared that HCR should be Obama’s “Waterloo”? In other words DeMint said that the GOP should obstruct everything Obama does, regardless of the potential benefits.
Broder is either a liar or a fool.
A Guest
Wasn’t Rosebud the sled? I mean, can a sled die, Cole?
bootsy
Broder should make way for the next generation of false equivalency.
Where is Jake Tapper? Is he on Rush Limbaugh, agreeing with Rush’s funny jokes about black people, and decrying the Democrat’s lack of cooperation with the party that says the unemployed will somehow magically find jobs if they starve?
(I’m sorry, I’m so shrill, everyone knows Laura Ingraham is so much more bipartisan than Limbaugh. She has a skirt!)
Jay C
Truer words were never blogged, John – I looked up Broder’s bio, and note that he was born in 1929; and has been a journalist since the mid-1950s (and at the WaPo since 1966). Even if he were the most modernist and open-minded of commentators (and he isn’t), it’s probably impossible to escape the dead iron hand of the ideology/worldview of one’s youth – in Broder’s case, probably the Eisenhower Era; when politics was the sole province of white men in grey suits; “Democrats” and “Republicans” occupied much more overlapping spheres than they do today, and the print medium was the main “gatekeeper” of political discussion. He really hasn’t changed much over the years, it’s just that the framework of political life in this country has shifted (rightward, and massively) under him – and David Broder has been left, fundamentally, talking to himself.
IndieTarheel
@paradox:
/wins thread
IndieTarheel
@jrg:
Objection: Assumes that the two are mutually exclusive.
Paul in KY
What soonergrunt said…
Paul in KY
Ugh, I hope they added some human vermouth to his martini.
gnomedad
@kansi:
You could point out that the soshulist health care takeover is similar to the one Mitt Romney signed into law Massachusetts, and that when a market-based plan to control pollution is finally proposed, they call it “tyranny”.
Taylor
Um, spoiler alert?
Rosebud was an in-joke. It was Heart’s nickname for Marion Davies.
Which tells me more about Hearst than I ever wanted to know.
Davies, though: fine, fine comedic actress.
Broder, not so much.
Mike Furlan
A “japanese” Broder reporting on December 7th 1941:
The Japanese navy lost 29 planes to hostile American anti-aircraft fire today.
Jon Karak
If Broder was a better writer, then his point would be much clearer.
Our two party system of governance allows Republicans to be rewarded with government influence even as they demonstrate, time and time again, of how incapable they are of governing. Even the most disastrous policy results in second place.
Democrats have the power to fix the problem, but they don’t. The dirty secret is that they are equally invested in the two-party system. An agitated base is a donating base.
Xenocrates
I am getting sick and tired of the Rethugs playing this game. First, they are simply opposed to ANYTHING Obama proposes. That’s fine, but then they muddy the waters by crying foul on the Democrats. And the stupid Dems sit around and cry into their oatmeal…it’s time to stop. Just start by telling the truth, and calling the Republicans on their obstruction. If they are not interested in fixing this country’s problems, which they clearly are NOT, let’s bounce them out and vote in some folks who DO understand why we have a government. And the Broders and Brooks of this media world need to stop pretending that it’s an even split. The GOP is full of bigots, corporatists and scum like Karl Rove…I really don’t think there is any comparison. No, the Dems are far from perfect, but let’s be honest; they are the better choice.
satby
Broder, Brooks, Dowd; Friedman; who the hell can really tell them apart? You could switch the names on their columns and no one would be able to tell.
They only represent each other in the little fables they write.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@soonergrunt:
Broder actually was bipartisan back in the day when the right wing of the Democratic party was more conservative than the Republican party as a whole. Which is to say more than 40 years ago. Things have changed a bit since then, but he’s been coasting ever since on the reputation he developed back in the 1960s.
We need term limits for pundits.
ETA:
Why the fuck is this old man on TV telling me anything about anything at all? Listening to David Broder today is like Teddy Roosevelt getting advice from the young bucks in the Buchanan administration.
Mr Furious
Settle down, everyone. Remember what today is?
He doesn’t mean it. This is Broder’s April Fool’s Day joke…
…
Wait? You mean this is what he always thinks??
MNPundit
Are you being stupid on purpose John? Is it the day?
The other side that you fail to describe has been cowardly, disorganized, capitulating, embarrassing, bribed and whiny. Every fucking word out of their mouths is followed by “But the right wing is mad…”
I hate them more than the Republicans. The Republicans have destroyed everything they ever touched since Taft quit trust-busting. Everything. They’ve also not said a true word since 1982. You know what you’re getting there.
But the Democrats are supposed to be better and smarter and the future. They are none of those things. They are a party I despise so much I want to skull fuck it’s pathetic corpse so a real party can rise up that fights for real people and not corporate cowards.
They’re better than the republicans and that’s the only thing you can say about them and you damn well know it. But I guess once a shill always a shill.
bobbo
And yet this is the guy the White House is trying to impress. According to Steve Benen
Joel
Thanks for the visual. Happy April Fool’s to you, too.
BombIranForChrist
Cole is wrong to believe that Broder and the Actual World We Live In share the same definition of “bipartisanship”.
In the World We Live In, “bipartisanship” represents a state of being in which two parties work together for the benefit of a Policy X.
In BroderLand, “bipartisanship” means “Midwestern Old White Man Conservatism”.
Once you understand that, you can make sense of Broder’s mutterings by using simple substitution:
Broder quote: “they are turned off by the inability of both parties to overcome their parochial concerns and agree on steps to curb the joblessness and debt that are consuming the country.”
What Broder means: “they are turned off by the inability of both parties to orally pleasure old white men from Iowa ordering Fruit Pie at local diners.”
Comrade Kevin
do not exist.
ThresherK
@Taylor:
Rosebud was an in-joke. It was Heart’s nickname for Marion Davies.
Shouldn’t that be Marion Davies’, i.e., Davies’ as a possessive?
Slight tangent: Citizen Kane was supposed to be about Hearst, but ended foreshadowing Welles’ future. In that category, Davies starring in “Show People” is all kinds of turned-in-on-itself dark humor.
Oh, and there’s nothing to add about David Broder, but let’s not forget the hacks at the WaPo who say “Well, both sides don’t like him so he must be doing something right”.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
To sum up the worst financial calamity in 80 years, which left millions without jobs and homes,
Republicans: Let’s deregulate the financial industry.
Clinton & “moderate” Dems: Say, that’s a great idea! Let’s!
In other words, the greatest catastrophe outside of war to strike our country in 80 years was caused by the radical, masturbatory centrism espoused by Broder.
David Broder caused the financial collapse. Not a joke, fact.
Jerry 101
It seems to me that we’ve reached a point where Obama could propose anything and the Republicans would staunchly oppose it. And if he jumped over the next day and supported the Republicans alternative – if they actually presented one – they would immediately disavow their previous stance, claim that it was not what they meant, and any assertions to the contrary are a liberal plot, and then adopt Obama’s initial proposal as their own. (Generally speaking, you can substitute any Prominent Democrat for Obama).
Obama could propose invading Iran tomorrow, and the Republicans would immediately become anti-war doves.
Obama could propose eliminating the income tax, and republicans would immediately propose returning to Pre-Reagan tax rates.
Obama could propose privatizing Social Security, and the Republicans would propose a massive expansion of Social Security.
It’s not about the policy to the Republicans, its about opposing the policy. Any policy. All policy.
I really hope the Dems get their shit together and trounce the Republicans in November – I think the Dems may need a bit of a beating sooner than later to keep ’em honest, but the Republican party really just needs to blow up (metaphorically, not literally) so we can get a real opposition party in place. After the failure to defeat HIR, an electoral defeat in November might break them.
Anyway, David Broder is very stupid. Obama’s been all bipartisan all the time. But, the bipartisan dance is just like the Tango – it takes 2. And the Republicans are sitting at the bar, getting rip-roaring drunk and flipping off (or punching) anyone who approaches for a dance.
Jerry 101
@El Cid:
Yes, I believe that is true. Plenty of hyper-liberal activist types won’t join the Democrats because they’re “just as bad as the Republicans”. Ok, so some are just as bad. Help us defeat them through primaries. Or at least put enough scare in ’em to get some decent votes from them. Anyway, they identify as independents or as members of some irrelevant 3rd party.
I’m not so sure about the other side anymore – seems that the Republican party is dominated by the extremes of conservatism these days. Seems more like the more center-right republican is likely to identify as an independent these days (but still votes R in almost all cases).
But your true independent – the “I vote for the person, not the party” type or whatnot are just very stupid people. Maybe not stupid stupid, but they do not pay one iota of attention to politics, and they get some kind of personal satisfaction and feeling of superiority by touting their independence and looking down upon party-line voters as the stupid ones.
Though I rarely voted for a Republican – just once, I believe – I used to be one of these people. The Best Person was always the Democrat. But I used to see people who voted straight ticket as unthinking zombies. Then I started to pay attention, and realized you don’t vote for the person. You vote for the Party.
So, yeah, stupid people occupy the mushy middle.
But, stupid people are easily swayed, and (at the end of the day), they typically like big winners and riding the bandwagon.
asiangrrlMN
Oh, damn. I thought this was Bobo when I read it elsewhere. Sadly, it sounded like something Brooks would have written. And, since I get Brooks and Friedman mixed up, too, I guess that makes the three of them some kind of unholy triumvirate.
As for bipartisanship, whatever THAT means, Benen had it right. The Republicans and the Democrats are oppositional parties. That means they are, like, you know oppositional to each other. While I agree that it’s been the Republicans doing all the obstructing lately, Benen’s salient point that there is a substantive difference between the two parties is, well, salient.
I would like a regular column in which I can decry the lack of genteel bipartisanship. I will even buy a hankie so I can delicately dab my (dry) eyes as I clutch my pearls and swoon upon the fainting couch.
kansi
@Jerry 101:
For example, the debt commission seven of them co-sponsored before they decided to oppose it.
mclaren
This is one of the big advantages for the Republicans when they use Senator Joe McCarthy-style smear tactics.
When Karl Rove set up the Swift Boat smear to imply that John Kerry was a traitor and a coward and that he lied about his war service, and then when the Democrats pointed out that the Republicans were lying, the press looked at the whole spectacle and said…
…”Well, gee, the Republicans are calling the Democrats traitors, and the Democrats are calling the Republicans liars, so I guess it’s all just a wash. Just that terrible, terrible partisanship rearing its ugly head, and both political parties are equally to blame. Oh dear.”
The press doesn’t seem to realize that when one group of people (Republicans) lies and lies and lies, and when another group of people (Democrats) points out that they’re lying, there’s no equivalency. The Demos are accurately describing the behavior of the other group, while the Repubs are simply lying their asses off.
But this little detail seems to escape our marvellous press corps.
Stentor
@Ugh:
My recipe for the perfect dry martini, pour the gin into the glass, add olive(s) as desired, add vermouth to humidifier, enjoy!