David Broder is off to quite a start in today’s WaPo chat:
Broder:….But I think the imperative now is for him (Obama) to show strength and willpower, especially after the North Koreans and the Pirates have shown they don’t put much stock in his strong words.
[….]New York, NY: Regarding the many and unvarying reasons given by American pundits, press and pols for not investigating torture and other war crimes during the Bush Administration, I just want to raise the fact that Britain also has a financial crisis to deal with. They also have a “future,” not just a past, to address. They also have faced, and still face, terrorist threats. Criminal investigations and prosecution would also be controversial for them and create partisan divisions. But they’re still proceeding to investigate credible allegations of serious crimes on the part of their government officials. That’s what the “rule of law” means. So what the heck happened to that quaint concept here in the good old U.S.A.?
David S. Broder: I’m not familiar with what the Brits are doing or if they have their own Abu Ghraibs to investigate. But I understand the reluctance to open a wide-ranging probe of past practices. It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions.
Update. He seems to have gone full neocon:
What I’m saying is that when you say as he has said, “there must be consequences” for aggressive acts, there must be consequences. You remember the boy who cried “Wolf”
[….]But you saw what happened when the North Korean missile test was taken to the United Nations. Wimps.
OC
Broder thinks an investigation would be "settling scores." Total moron.
schrodinger's cat
Shorter Broder : Some animals are more equal than the others.
eric
I am not familiar with what the Brits are doing because that would require that i am actually informed about world events and news of the major industrialized nations.
tool.
eric
mr. whipple
Did I miss the ‘strength’ chimpco showed to N Korea and the pirates? IIRC, at this point in chimpco’s first term, the Chinese sent back our spy plane in little pieces after chimpco groveled to get it back.
Dennis-SGMM
Two words: Kenneth Starr.
valdivia
This is just idiotic. The pirates are emboldened and the koreans are emboldened because Obama is not pedantic enough to yell at the world to do as he says? Ugh, these Villagers are so predictably blind.
aimai
Oh noez, the piratz have shown Obama has a tiny penis and doesn’t mean all that changy stuff.
Is that not the correct LOL catz translation of Broder?
aimai
Persia
@valdivia:
I’m sure the first thing those Somali pirates thought when they saw a big unarmed container ship was, "Ha! Let’s stick it to Obama!"
Cain
@Dennis-SGMM:
My reaction to Kenneth Starr is approximately the same as the horse in Young Frankenstein when hearing Frau Blucher! Douchebag!
cain
Evinfuilt
If only we could torture Iranians we’d be able to solve the North Korea Nuclear issue and Somalian pirates.
Stefan
I’m not familiar with what the Brits are doing or if they have their own Abu Ghraibs to investigate.
Huh, I’m familiar with that, and unlike David Broder it’s not even my job to be. Can I have his column now?
One word, David: Google. Or perhaps have one of your research assistants pull you some clips, and you can slip into your cardigan and peruse them over a nice cup of tea?
It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions.
The Department of Justice prosecuting alleged violent criminal acts in non-partisan trials overseen by an impartial federal judge is now "settling scores for past actions"? Why does David Broder hate the American justice system?
Next up! David Broder’s full-throated denunciation of the Nuremberg war crimes trials!
eric
we should never have "settled scores" at Nuremberg. And let’s stop the deportation of former Nazis’ cause that is score settling.
a$$hole.
eric
r€nato
@Persia:
That IS how the frightards are spinning it, you know.
1) Obama = secret muslim on worldwide apology/groveling tour
2) mere weeks into Obama’s term, first US flagged ship hijacked by
desperate Somali piratesmuslim terrorists taking cues from US weaknessDo I need to draw you a picture? With a crayon?
Cpl. Cam
No. Fucking. Way.
Stefan
It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions.
I’m sure Broder would feel the same way if it had been one of his friends, family or colleagues who were kidnapped, raped and tortured by the government for seven years.
Balconespolitics
I say the same thing every time I hear about some investigation into a bank robbery, or a bar shooting, or a drunk driver who kills people.
Why obsess with settling scores against the (potentially) guilty individuals, rather than just focussing on the policies and practices that would prevent those things from happening again in the future?
Just Some Fuckhead
David Broder will be turning 80 in September. I think it’s time he started bussing tables and give his column to someone who doesn’t have dementia.
r€nato
That goes right up there in the Hall of Shame with Joe Klein’s "I don’t know anything about the FISA bill in the House, but Republicans are right that Democrats want to weaken America so that Muslims can invade and make the US part of the worldwide caliphate!"
Cpl. Cam
Maybe it’d help to put "Although I’m a journalist" in front of all his answers? For instance:
Although I’m a journalist I understand the reluctance to open a wide-ranging probe of past practices. It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions.
Nope, still want to puke a little.
DougJ
FTW.
r€nato
I’m sure blogreeder would approve.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Dennis-SGMM:
My brother, the extreme religiorighty, said this ten years ago:
"When I see Ken Starr, I think pederast."
This is why I can’t really stop liking my brother despite the politics and the holier than thou stuff. Those flashes of brilliance just pop out despite the brainwashing.
The kid is much smarter than I am. Which is damning him with faint praise, but still …..
valdivia
@Persia:
exactly! This crew really have no sense of causation or correlation or anything.
Stefan
What I’m saying is that when you say as he has said, “there must be consequences” for aggressive acts, there must be consequences. You remember the boy who cried “Wolf”
Oh, I disagree, David. I understand the reluctance to open a wide-ranging probe of past aggressive acts. It seems to me we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions.
Seriously, which is it? There must be consequences for wrongdoing, or we should forgive and forget the wrongdoing and move on?? He’s arguing the exact opposite position within the same conversation….
Tonal Crow
So Broder is proposing that we abolish criminal law, since "we are better off focusing on cleaning up the policies and practices for the future than trying to settle scores for past actions"?
Oh, but wait, "there must be consequences" for North Korea’s past acts.
So which is it, Broder? Do we "settle scores for past actions" or do we "clean[] up…for the future".
DonkeyKong
But you saw what happened when the North Korean missile test was taken to the United Nations. Wimps.-Broder’s Prostate
Wow, that turtle lookin motherfucker is quite butch.
AhabTRuler
The way that I parse it, it comes off as more "I don’t know enough detail to comment on the subject," which is actually a reasonable reluctance to answer. Or rather it would be, if Broder didn’t have a well established history of being a fortuitously oblivious jackass.
And here he is!
r€nato
@Tonal Crow:
Your confusion would be greatly eased and you would understand everything much better if you just memorize these seven letters:
IOKIYAR
TheHatOnMyCat
Wow, I knew the Pirates sucked, but I had no idea they had sunk to this level.
Bill Mazeroski weeps.
Come on, Pirates in caps? Broder wrote that?
Now THAT’S funny.
AhabTRuler
Broder has toweled-off, zipped up, and gone back to work. I thought it was interesting that more than half of the questions were longer and more detailed (and more intelligent) than the responses from the jackass.
He is a precise definition of the phrase "useful idiot."
Dennis-SGMM
Those ol’ North Koreans are some damned fast workers, you betcha’! Why they started their whole missile program on January 20th of this year and they’re already up to launching a three-stage vehicle that (If it doesn’t fall into the sea first) may or may not be able to loom over Sarah Palin.
Miriam
I’m glad that person asked the question that way. It was a really lame answer.
Do people think the Democrats are waiting to investigate/prosecute until after Health Care is passed? Or is it really never going to happen?
Tonal Crow
@r€nato:
Well, I suppose I should have some compassion for the GOPtarded. But wait…isn’t that — gasp! — soc ialism? I’m confused again….
[1] Line-break omitted because the blog software just can’t handle it.
Paul Weimer
North Koreans and the Pirates?
Is that like Terry and the Pirates?
Balconespolitics
@Miriam:
Health Care or an investigation?
What’s greater, the number of Dem congresspeople who are subsidiaries of the insurance lobby, or the number of the senior Democratic leadership who were at least tacitly complicit (via knowing silence) in the illegal surveillance, detentions, and torture?
Wisdom
We can all sleep better at night knowing that Barack is turning to that august body, the UN, to deal with Iran, North Korea and Somalia. Their success in solving so many problems will protect us.
Llelldorin
My hope is that they’re planning to bleed out details of exactly what went on slowly over the next year, then start charges about a year from now. That way, they can slowly educate the majority of Americans about what actually happened, and will be less vulnerable to some asshole pulling an Ollie North during the actual hearings/trial.
Remember, in Iran/Contra Dems went for the jugular too quickly, and with no sense of strategy. The result was setting up a situation that played right in to right-wing mythology–paunchy liberal congressmen hectoring a Good Patriotic All-American Soldier Who Was Only Doing His Duty! Because they hadn’t properly laid the groundwork to demonstrate what a piece of work North was before he was on the stand, it backfired, and hard.
My fear is that the actual logic is more like, "wow, that sounds really hard, and it might backfire. Fuck it."
Balconespolitics
@Paul Weimer:
LOL … too easy
Llelldorin
@Wisdom: The UN Security Council is raw US power wearing a blue helmet, assuming we can convince enough other countries that our actions are also in their interests. If you can’t see the wisdom of pretending that a US move is an international one after the last eight years, you really need to choose a new user name.
Brachiator
Although this is fairly mild, it is still in the vein of the current conservative pundit strategy to pile on Obama (Pundits escalate attacks against Obama)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/09/MN1I16TJEN.DTL:
Apparently, the thinking is that if they go Full Negative on Obama, something will stick and the public will turn on the Democrats. This also, of course, relieves Republicans of the burden of actually coming up with workable solutions.
Ah, but he is not really a journalist anymore. He’s a pundit. A pundit is a former journalist who has risen above the need to resort to facts in order to form an opinion about something.
This is, of course, different from a wingnut blogger, for whom facts are toxic.
Dennis-SGMM
@Wisdom:
Right on! Anyone but a wimpy-ass peace-at-any-price fucking leftoid would already be deploying our thousands of troops: they’re fresh, re-equipped, re-trained, ready, and have been resting for years after executing Bush’s stunningly effective strategies for victory in Iraq and Afghanistan.
JM
Right. ‘Cause we all remember how well the Manly Man Doctrine has worked over the last eight years.
El Cid
Clearly the UN should have authorized the bombing and invasion of North Korea (and the concomitant destruction of Seoul, South Korea) because of the possibility of the imminent danger of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile related program activities somewhat North, East, West, and South of Pyongyang.
Calouste
I’m pretty sure Broder was thinking about these Pirates when he decided to capitalize the word.
dslak
Maybe I’m wrong in my history, but I recall dealing with pirates to have generally been a difficult and long process in the first place. Considering how long it’s been since anybody has had to deal with them on such a large scale, wouldn’t it be worthwhile to consider what the best strategies for both preventing piracy and protecting its victims before doing something rash?
But what am I saying? Surely this is just another problem that can be solved with a few more bombs or a dick-measuring contest. Amirite, Mr. Broder?!
r€nato
@Wisdom:
George W. Bush turned to that same august body to give a patina of respectability to his unilateral decision to invade and occupy Iraq no matter what.
In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, we have discovered that the UN inspectors were right that Saddam had no WMD nor WMD programs.
The UN has successfully administered Kosovo since 1999.
The UN endorsed the US-led liberation of Kuwait in 1990.
Just off the top of my head.
I’m sorry, what were you talking about?
Dennis-SGMM
@El Cid:
Real men wouldn’t be deterred by the fact that there are several thousand DPRK artillery tubes zeroed in on Seoul. Nor would this bother them:
Link
El Cid
I’d just like to take this opportunity to say very clearly "Fuck all you right wingers and your obsession with the UN". I hate all of you worthless shitbags and I’m glad you’re so committed to your perpetual loss, ’cause America no longer wants to be ruled by your dumbass redneck right wing bullshit.
Wisdom
@Llelldorin: That raw, throbbing and powerful UN force must also excite Barack also. Unfortunately, all he got were some advisors and do-gooders. No combat troops.
I particularly loved the European ministers response to spreading the Gitmo crowd – "Mr. President, if they’re not dangerous, why don’t you just keep them?"
And as an example of what happens when you elect a trainee president, Democrat realism in Iraq is crashing into reality.
Evinfuilt
@r€nato: Maybe Wisdom wasn’t sarcastic… Yup, I’m so sure of it.
Comrade Dread
When I start teaching PoliSci, I’m going to have to devote an entire lecture explaining why if a college student screws up and gets caught with weed (or coke), the full force of the American legal system is brought against him and could destroy his future, while if he were elected to the Presidency, he could break treaties, trample the constitution, and torture people to his heart’s delight and the legal system would wink at it because we must move forward, and we can’t engage in witch hunts, and reasonable people disagree about what happened.
Justice is apparently only blind if you’re a commoner.
Grace Nearing
Who is David Broder and why should I care what he thinks?
Face
"Pirates" is now a proper noun? WTF?
Ash Can
Hm. Maybe Broder’s afraid he’d be implicated somehow in a war crimes investigation. Now I’m curious…
lilysmom
@Balconespolitics:
Bwahahaha. I’m so glad that President Giuliani is here to keep us all safe. He will nuke those evil North Koreans in a trice… and the Iranians, and the Russians, and the Taliban, and the Venezuelans, and the…
Think that will make Broder happy?
bayville
Is he drunk, senile, retarded or ALL OF THE ABOVE:
Fencedude
@Wisdom:
Do you really think its a good idea to sling terms like that around? I can’t imagine how it could possibly backfire on you.
The Moar You Know
My guess? Never going to happen. Too many bodies on both sides of the aisle.
Dennis-SGMM
@Fencedude:
FTW
JM
… at which point, dumbass links to Capitol Hill Blue, of all things, saying that something "may" happen.
That’s dumbass’ notion of "reality." No wonder dumbass is on the losing side lately.
dslak
@JM: Because things may happen, different decisions may have to be made. You may not want a president from the opposing party in office at that time.
geg6
So I guess that Broder is just fine if we just forget about the douchebag winger who killed the three fine police officers that we Pittsburghers saluted with great pomp, circumstance, and solemnity yesterday.
After all, mowing down those cops is just his past practice and we don’t want to waste time, money, or effort probing that or, heaven forbid, settling any scores with him. Let’s look ahead, after all, and see how their deaths help lower the deficit what with the savings on their salaries, benefits, and pensions.
It’s a win all the way around!
Shawn in Showme
@Moar You Know
Even if it’s just a handful on the Democratic side, I suspect they’re pretty high profile. I’m looking at you, Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson.
Dennis-SGMM
Guess there’s no point in mentioning that if someone hadn’t gone cowboying into Iraq, Afghanistan might not be slipping into chaos, Iraq might still be a thorn in the side of Iran and we might have a few brigades to spare. No sir. The wingers’ complete forgetting of just who got us into these multiple clusterfucks has to be one of the greatest cases of mass amnesia in the history of the world.
George W. Bush shat on this country for eight years and now the wingers are blaming Obama for the lingering odor.
Laura W
@Dennis-SGMM: DougJ already gave the thread win to Fuckhead.
T-ball thread?
;-)
(Fuckhead shares well. He’ll be fine with it, I’m sure.)
Edit: LOL on the tea, Dennis!
geg6
@Wisdom:
You know, it’s more than a little ironic that such a stupid shit bag would use an online tag like Wisdom.
Or maybe you were going for satire.
Oh, wait. No, you are that stupid.
Dennis-SGMM
@Laura W:
Depends on whether or not he’s had his cup o’ tea.
Tonal Crow
@Comrade Dread:
Ain’t that the truth. And hardly anything is more corrosive of respect for law than the fact that the privileged get away with murder while the average guy gets the shaft. It’s high time we changed that. Obama could (and should) begin that change by saying:
Just Some Fuckhead
Don’t be harshing my mellow, Dennis. I’m organizing a "Toss Their Salad!" anti-arugula protest right now.
Wisdom
@JM: It is always more interesting to point out disconnects between democrats’ reality and their drive-by media sources.
Proving the source does not really matter to you, just like the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee could not possibly have any culpability for what has happened in the last two years of his tenure.
@Fencedude: You have very little to look forward to in the next few years with "Obama, maybe slightly better than Carter or Clinton"
Ash Can
@Wisdom: Here’s a tip, Sparky: If you’re going to criticize the current president, that’s great, but it really, really helps to do it from an angle where we can’t look directly past you and see the MASSIVE FUCKING LANDFILL your heroes in the previous administration left for said current president to clean up. It would also help your case if the "trainee president" hadn’t done more presidential-type good in his first 75 days in office than Bush did in 8 fucking years (with none of the damage, either), but you’re trying SO HARD to ignore all that, that it seems almost cruel for me to mention it.
Hugh Jass
I understand why Republicans in Washington would want everyone to focus on the future instead of "settling scores for past actions." I even understand why Democrats in Washington would feel the same way, especially since many of them would be implicated by a fair and full investigation.
But I really don’t understand a reporter thinking that a criminal investigation wouldn’t be worthwhile. It seems to me that Broder’s attitude shows in stark detail how much the Washington press have become part of the Establishment, and why they can’t really report fairly on that Establishment.
Emma Anne
Here is what I think of whenever I hear Broder’s name:
Of course he was never so rude as to make such remarks about Bush.
Dennis-SGMM
@Tonal Crow:
What’s the point of being rich if you can’t crush the bodies of the poor with your carriage, drive on with impunity, and then take a tax deduction for wear and tear on the carriage wheels?
Damned leveler.
WereBear
@Llelldorin:
This is my hope, as well. Not only the lessons of Iran-Contra (which was a very good point; but also their noise machine was at full strength back then) but also the fact that as strange as it is to us political junkies, a considerable chunk of the populace vaguely remembers some upsetting photos, but they caught those people! and it was all taken care of.
I really don’t think the full dimension has sunk in yet… and it would be foolish to charge ahead until it has.
Tonal Crow
@Dennis-SGMM:
Damn! I thought the point of being rich was in being less anxious about the future and more able to enjoy the present. Silly me; I ought to have realized that it now involves behaving like Shagrat on a bender. Like everything else they’ve touched, the GOP have dumbed-down and antisoc ialized-up what it means to be rich.
binzinerator
David S. Broder:
We need to have this prick explain why someone who writes for 30 years in a major newspaper about politics, and all the wars, policies and events that relate to and affect the political scene, seems to have no idea what is going on with the biggest ally this country has had in Iraq, Afganistan and in the global war on terrorism.
We need to have this prick explain why he insists justice is now nothing more than the settling of old scores.
And someone needs to have this dishonest little prick explain why he had no problem with settling scores for past actions when that past action was 9-11.
David Broder is a fucking asshole and a fucking tool.
Wisdom
@Hugh Jass:
And therein Hugh points out the hypocrisy.
The democrats always want their cake and eat it too. They were against everything before they were for everything. And as we will see over the next few years, rather than deal with that, or the here and now, they will just have to satisfy themselves with Chimpy McHalliburton hate and adjust the message as each new experiment fails.
Woody
.
Well, duh!
The CorpoRat press has been captive of the BEEG Money interests ever since (at least) they started to be "consolidated" by corporations which had no interest in the "press"–other than to stifle it–back in the ’80s.
The "press" is dying, but not of ‘natural causes.’
It’s being slowly, systematically murdered but those who profess to honor it.
Woody
Yes, yes he is…
but that is not a unique condition.
Every member of the corpoRat press–AP, WaPo, NYT, network and cable news–every fucking one of them fits quite comfortably in that category, what I call the "SCUM": SoCalledUnbiasedMedia.
GSD
I thought that any aggressive actions taken against the United States after a new president has been inuagurated is the fault of the prior president up until the date of 9/11 of that year?
-GSD
Stefan
I thought that any aggressive actions taken against the United States after a new president has been inuagurated is the fault of the prior president up until the date of 9/11 of that year?
Yes, up to AND INCLUDING that day. President Obama will only be responsible on September 12, 2009.
Meadow Lark
I thought Broder got pretty well piled upon today in his chat. I also thought it was funny that he couldn’t recognize snark when he saw it, e.g. have the Republicans had any good ideas yet?
asiangrrlMN
Wait, so I am confused. Is Obama an Islofascist dictator who is bent on taking yur (white) wimmenz and destroying Western civilization as we know it, or is he an arugala-eating, Honest Tea-drinking (which is a great brand of tea, by the way) effete librul wuss who is getting walked over by the rest of the world?
I iz confuzzled.
As for Broder and all those who advocate ‘looking to the future’ (yes, that includes Obama and Biden), that is a load of shit, to put it politely. My best friend is the director at a high school for at-risk youth. I used to be a counselor for juvenile delinquents. You mean to tell me that these kids can be put in jail for smoking a joint or boosting a Honda (one of my kids could do calculus, but could only hot-wire Hondas. I suggested he find another line of work), but we can’t be bothered to investigate people who outright admit that they tortured prisoners? (See Cheney and waterboarding. Hell, see Cheney and shooting friend in the face.) Then, we can no longer tell our (figurative) kids that actions have consequences because they fucking don’t.
I sincerely hope that those who think the administration is just taking its time to get all the facts before making a move are correct, but I fear it’s more like, "Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving." Prosecution will be messy, ugly, and will take a lot of resources and time. The admin may conclude that it’s better off not to even try. In which case, Cheney will rise from the dead forty years from now and screw up America once again. Fortunately, I will (probably) be dead when that happens.
Mike in NC
The wingers thought it was the scent of victory, and Obama opened a window. Killjoy.