This could easily have been written by an artificial intelligence program:
A year after Barack Obama’s election stirred broad hopes for change among American voters, persistent high unemployment and the spectacle of continued gridlock in Washington threaten Democratic dominance of the political landscape.
Tuesday’s defeats in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey not only ended a decade or more of Democratic gains in those states but also signaled possible trouble ahead in the midterm elections at the national level.
Twenty years ago, he would have at least thrown in a “stinging rebuke” or whatever the 1980s variant of the phrase was. Forty years ago, he would have written that Democrats had tears streaming down their faces.
Now all we get is some warmed over tripe about “possible trouble ahead”?
Ann B. Nonymous
Broder’s columns would be less offensive to me if every sentence began, “I am eighty years old and I believe that…” in the same way that Megan McArdle’s ramblings would be improved if every post began and concluded with, “I am thirty-six years old,” (until her birthday, of course).
Zam
Well these assholes can go on speculating and making shit up. Rarely ever is there any actual data to back up anything they say even the shit they claim is conventional wisdom doesn’t have any numerical data to back it up.
robertdsc-PowerBook-now with 27 championships
I’m curious. When was Broder’s big heyday? I know he’s been around a long time, but when was the time he had the most impact?
Yutsano
Was it just me or was that column nothing more than a blinding flash of the obvious? Would it be too much of an intellectual exercise if Broder tried to imagine if Grandpa and Bible spice were running the show and how
much of a disasterdifferent things would be?Batocchio
Even his concern trolling is old and tired.
andy
He’s got his fancy-pants formula and he’ll by gum stick to it! Portentous sounding nothing to impress readers with nothing on their minds either. They can quote his columns at some geezer cocktail party and be all above the fray and stuff.
Mark S.
I can’t imagine what these idiots would be saying if Hoffman would have won.
jl
“While that problem concerns Republicans, Democrats have a larger worry: the unemployment crisis that crippled John McCain and the Republicans in 2008 is hanging on — and now is being blamed on Democrats.”
Wonder what evidence he can produce for that statement? The recent polling I have seen indicates the exact opposite.
And of course, wingnuts taking over GOP primaries is considered a small problem compared to the Big Problems of the Democrats (that could have been written by a machine).
Does the CA-10 election not exist? A liberal progressive Democrat beat up a credible anti-tax deficit hawk GOPer in what has been considered a conservative district (economic conservaDem Tauscher has been considered to be the only kind of Democrat that had a chance there).
But the WaPo, with its usual high quality reporting said that NY-23 was the ONLY congressional election on Tuesday, and I guess Broderella got his info from there.
And they wonder why no one wastes their money on this junk anymore.
geemoney
We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell ’em stories that don’t go anywhere – like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…
jl
I wonder if Broder will be at the slimy corrupt lobbying effort… oops, I am being uncivil, I mean the high minded search for truth and platform for incisive, robust debate on global warming policy held by Newseek and the oil industry?
He will probably get a lot of ‘facts’ and innovative policy ideas from that shindig, along with the cocktail weenies and luxe conference food.
Little Macayla's Friend
@Mark S.:
“Palin Wins The Series!” “Palin Wins The Series!” “Palin Wins The Series!”
/senseless enough?
jl
A horrid thought: Jonathan Swift uncovered evidence that journalists who write senseless crud that dies at the moment of its issue are granted immortality in return.
Broder could be with us forever.
Chuck Butcher
But Doug, all those years ago there wasn’t the intertubes to catch him being mostly wrong and generally stupid. Must be a bit more careful nowadays
Calouste
@DougJ:
Do you think that Broder has passed some kind of reverse Turing Test? Instead of there being no difference between a human and a machine impersonating a human, we can find no difference between a machine and a human impersonating a machine.
Although some would suggest that the first occurence of this happened when Madame Tussaud’s put up a wax statue of Reagan.
Col. Klink
Behold! Broder’s long predicted “Bush bounce” is finally upon us. How much longer until W. takes back the White House? Also. All this is EXCELLENT news for John McCain.
Strange fact nonetheless. I believe the GOP lost both Congressional races the other night, including one in a district they had held since the siege of Vicksburg. This is also EXCELLENT news for John McCain of course. And a stinging rebuke to Obama.
Sophist
If that’s the word for it.
Col. Klink
@8 Geemoney = Epic win
Pretty much sums up Broder.
MelodyMaker
does Broder still wear an onion on his pants?
Joey Maloney
No, he’s just happy to see you.
MelodyMaker
hey! you bastards!
MelodyMaker
I’m so unhip that I might just start reading Broder, instead of the synopsis from RisingHegemon. and not getting it, apparently.
MelodyMaker
Has Barack Obama trashed the place yet?
See how I did that? Typing words, bitches!
MelodyMaker
seriously. I know, I know.
DougJ’s links show Broder to be a ratfucker of the kindest and decentest sort. best kind of ratfucker money can buy. Even the odious Chris Matthews can quote him.
that’s how they roll.
MelodyMaker
shit! I’m running solo on Balloon-Juice. Ok, I’ve got a few OT things…. for ONE! bedtime. TWO! eggs and ramen and celery and carrots. Three cats going wtf…
arguingwithsignposts
I suppose it’s too much for him to know that the Va. Gov. was held by Republicans until 2001, meaning that there was only an 8-year gain, right?
SiubhanDuinne
Broderdammerung is a great thread title. Again. I really like your thread titles, DougJ.
Andy K
@arguingwithsignposts:
Since 1984 it’s gone like this in VA: POTUS elected from one party, VA elects a a Governor from the other party the following year. That’s seven elections in a row.
arguingwithsignposts
@Andy K:
yeah, but I was pointing out the idiocy of the “a decade or more” construct by Broder. Of course, Deeds was a sucky candidate, so there’s also that.
kommrade reproductive vigor
If Obama gave everyone a pony, Bore-der would inform us that conventional wisdom suggests most Americans are unhappy with the color of the pony they received.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
With the MSM harping about Obama you would never know that the two new congressmen elected Tuesday are Democrats. People who will be in a position to help pass a national health care bill, not governors who have to deal with the issues near and dear to a state and have little to nothing to do with getting health care legislation passed.
Even the teabagger/Republican loss in NY-23 is old news, not worth jumping on until the next teabagger threat manifests itself to some hapless moderate Republican pol. Nope, the focus remains on Obama because news about Obama drives the news unless some other bigger distraction comes along. If Obama can somehow made to be involved in the NEW distraction, even better!
So much of the ‘news’ today is opinion driven drivel, too much of it completely lacking in context or outright lying that is intended to misinform, drive controversy or a particular story line. Interviewees can talk with the hosts about Bigfoot, Area 51 and the aliens that visit them regularly for anal probing with the host sitting there nodding sagely as if every utterance is gospel truth.
Too much of what we are fed via the MSM is absolutely worthless and is not news in the sense that it accurately informs you, in fact it far too often deliberately misleads. If high quality, factual news was required for a healthy life like food is, the shit we are fed would have killed everyone decades ago. An informed citizenry is good for a politically healthy country but if you are getting fed worthless shit then I can’t help but think that eventually it is going to end badly.
I know we Americans like to think that we are the exception to the rule, whatever it is, but history has no exceptions. Without exception, every top nation has failed and fallen. The only way that changes is if we don’t fail.
History shows that the odds aren’t in our favor but what the hell, we’re exceptional!
arguingwithsignposts
BTW, the same is true in NJ. Does anyone fact check these Posties?
cat48
I’m trying to figure out why I should be upset by the Va Gov race when it flips to the opposition party for the last 8 pres. elections. Even St. Reagan “lost” it both terms after winning the state by about 20 points in gen election.
They are mocking Pelosi for saying she won. She did. She has 2 more healthcare votes than she did Tues a.m. NY 23 and CA 10 went to house. Governors don’t get a vote in the House the last time I checked.
It is incredible how the wingnuts get to drive the news. I have heard no one on cable mention the CA house seat & I’m not watching Fox. MJ is blaming the loss in Maine on Obama, too.
Gail Collins has a good election analysis column which makes about as much sense as the idiots for the last 24. Plus it makes one smile at the insanity.
dmsilev
@arguingwithsignposts:
Like any good AI, Broderbot works in octal.
-dms
dr. bloor
Artificial Intelligence demands an apology.
WereBear
Love the title.
There’s a simple explanation for clueless pundits, even those who would be clueless without help. They’re in the tank, throwing the fight, and shilling for The Man.
Wall to wall corporate media. It’s not for science fiction anymore!
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
What a waste, he could run just as well using binary.
El Cid
Had Democrats won both the NJ and VA governors’ races, but lost the NY-23, all these shit-heads would be writing the exact same thing.
They write what they want to be true, not what is true.
In fact, had Democrats won every single race this past Tuesday it would still be evidence for these fuckers that Americans had grown askeert of Obama-Pelosi’s radical Democrap agenda, because the elections were only won by a few percentage points rather than 40% victories.
And had Democrats won every single race by 40% margins, this too would have been evidence that Americans had grown fearful of liberal Democratic gains, and that they were seeking a bipartisan center-right approach more reminiscent of Reagan.
That same Reagan who, 2 years into his Presidency in 1983, was about at a 50% approval rating and Americans were suffering 9.8% unemployment.
kay
Someone needs to actually make a chart of the individual pundits predictive powers.
A right/wrong ratio, then rank them against each other.
For example, I think Frank Rich has a really good intuitive political sense, but I don’t know.
It would be good for punditry. A merit-based system. We need an objective measure.
We know Karl Rove has to be in the bottom ten per cent in the last 5 years, so it would be worth doing just to discredit him.
El Cid
@kay: People do this for consumer products and for sports writers and for lots of categories of producers and figures. But the Establishmentarian media specializes in combining unaccountability with excuse making for its rotten performance, so good luck.
azlib
As a Computer Scientist I am offended by your gratuitous insult to AI.
Does anybody read Broder anymore?
Ash Can
Maybe even he knows this narrative is horsecrap.
(Unlike the title of this thread, which is awesome.)
kay
@El Cid:
I know they do it for sports writers, and I’m jealous of that certainty. People here do it for the local sports writer, who is either worshipped or vilified, depending on how the high school football rivalries end up.
They call him to account :)
He has to issue explanations and apologies, deny bias, all that.
It’s good. It acts as a check on dumb-ass bloviating
kay
I maintain the press and pundits are just really, really conventional people, and they were most surprised of anyone when Barack H. Obama won, and they will spend the next three years explaining why that was a fluke.
Chris Matthews is talking about himself when he talks about the mythical white beer-drinking bowler who won’t accept change.
They’re the center-right nation.
bemused
@cat48:
Gail Collins column is great snark but echoed the bizarre bs that is spewed constantly far too accurately. Depressing.
El Cid
Exactly. Which is why no one in the Establishmentarian media would want it done.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@El Cid: This.
The Narrative states Democrats are losers. Any evidence that suggests departure from The Narrative must be an aberration.
The Narrative must be maintained!
burnside
Doug, twenty years ago the construct was “sent a message”. It, too, became tiresome very quickly.
El Cid
@kommrade reproductive vigor: I’m not really making it up.
They have a system.
If you tell them that our news production fails to live up to the values and basic principles of journalism as classically defined, then they will tell you that you are an unsophisticated idealist and you do not understand that they are in a business, the news business, and you need to shut up with your idealist whining.
If you examine their product (their actual news and opinion output) and you complain, as a consumer, that they are attempting to sell you a shitty and defective product, and you don’t think you should be asked to purchase their shitty and defective product any more, at this time they will tell you that, well, it is impossible to produce any other kind of product, and let us tell you in 40 paragraphs or in 30 minutes the fascinating production process by which we go through to make our work, firstly because, well, we’re unendingly fascinated by what we do, and secondly to distract you from the end result, i.e., said shitty and defective product.
So, if you accuse the Establishmentarian media of not doing its job as journalistic institutions, then you are an unsophisticated idealist who doesn’t understand the news business model.
And if you accuse the Establishmentarian media of not doing its job in delivering you a worthwhile consumer product to purchase, then you need to realize that due to the fascinating intricacies of their production it just isn’t possible to deliver you anything better.
Which is why I read lots of foreign news sources every day, including lots of Latin American newspapers who have far fewer resources than these fuckers and yet make a much more accurate and reliable product.
Plus it’s funny to watch the U.S. media pump out shitty ideological coverage of Latin American events that I can read about more accurately from the local papers.
kay
@El Cid:
Who needs their permission? It’s a public service, and there’s plenty of material. They write this blather to try to shape opinion, going forward. Let’s measure their influence on voters.
El Cid
Robert Fisk is just not going along with our celebration of the new elected awesome government of
parts of KabulAfghanistan:**********************
Back in 1967, the Americans oversaw a “democratic” election in Vietnam which gave the presidency to the corrupt ex-General Nguyen Van Thieuman. In a fraudulent election which the Americans declared to be “generally fair” – he got 38 per cent of the vote – Thieu’s opponents wouldn’t run against him because the election was a farce.
In 1967, Washington needed the elections to give legitimacy to this revolting dictator – and thus provide credibility to its own military occupation of Vietnam in the war against Communism. As in Vietnam – where Saigon was a lonely kingdom of brutal power totally isolated from the rest of the country – Karzai is going to rule over an equally tiny island of corruption, protected by US mercenaries while the Americans perform their familiar role of propping up a dictator.
But it’s part of a dreary pattern. US forces were participating in a civil war in Vietnam while claiming they were supporting democracy and the sovereignty of the country. In Lebanon in 1982, they claimed to be supporting the “democratically” elected President Amin Gemayel and took the Christian Maronite side in the civil war. And now, after Disneyworld elections, they are on the Karzai-government side against the Pashtun villagers of southern Afghanistan among whom the Taliban live. Where is the next My Lai?
Journalists should avoid predictions. In this case I will not. Our Western mission in Afghanistan is going to end in utter disaster.
El Cid
Oops. First and last two paragraphs should be separated by ellipses.
El Cid
@kay: I’m all in favor. The actual output of news production companies and opinionators should be reviewed objectively and rated like any consumer product, such as DVD players or washing machines.
By the way, in Denver a broadcaster proposes moving past the last century of relying on advertiser support to fund our news with subscribers existing only to lure advertisers:
***************************************
DENVER — A Denver public television station is planning a nonprofit investigative news operation with a Web site and on-air program.
KBDI-TV said this week it will launch the project when it raises an initial $400,000.
A news release didn’t set a target date. Wick Rowland, KBDI’s president and CEO, says the project will ask for tax-deductible donations from community members, corporations and foundations — similar to the donor base for public television.
The operation will be called Colorado Public News. The editor-in-chief is Ann Imse, who was a reporter for the now-closed Rocky Mountain News.
Rowland says the venture is in response to “the reduction of significant investigative journalism” nationally and locally.
Skepticat
AI? More like the monkeys with typewriters.
Brian J
Didn’t exit polls basically confirm that these elections were almost entirely locally based and had little to nothing to do with Obama?
Fulcanelli
Open the pod door, David.
Hey cut Broder some slack, his heart wasn’t in this one. He was preoccupied by his search for the Carrie Prejean Sex Tape that killed her chances for a big bux settlement. Heh.
Great title, Doug.
Svensker
@arguingwithsignposts:
No need. No facts.
kay
@El Cid:
I don’t believe pundits shape public opinion. What I fear is that they shape DC lawmaker opinion. I think I’m right about that, too, based on the last twenty years.
I’m not worried about the public demanding Obama turn into Sarah Palin. I’m worried about Congressional Democrats listening to this idiot, and acting accordingly.
RSA
I was going to say that any self-respecting AI programmer would have chosen a consistent underlying logic to generate such text, but then I realized that Broder is pretty self-consistent.
ppcli
@RSA:
No question he’s consistent, since he can be modeled by a one-state Turing Machine.
BC
You know, when a pundit uses the words “persistent gridlock,” he/she should put the onus for that where it belongs – on the Republicans in Congress. Broder purports to be against gridlock, but he’s not willing to call out the party that is responsible for it.
ET
I think Broderdammerung needs a definition in the Lexicon.
Nutella
@El Cid:
I’d like to follow Latin American news. Can you give us the names of the news sites you like?
Thanks.
El Cid
@Nutella: I’m not really choosy. I’ll read any local Spanish language Latin American paper over U.S. coverage of the same. For Mexico, I prefer La Jornada but El Universal is very good, as well as tons of regional state papers. For Colombia I turn usually to El Espectador and El Tiempo and the weekly Semana (the one whose journalists exposed the national intelligence agency DAS for systematically spying on nearly every sector of the nation which possibly could be opposed to the conservative President Uribe’s agenda). For Ecuador El Comercio is usually pretty reliable. For Costa Rica, Nacion is pretty good. For Honduras, throughout the coup I’ve turned to Tiempo, La Tribuna, and various radio stations including Radio Globo. And so on and so forth.
In English, the Latin American Herald Tribune is usually pretty good at covering the basics.
For systematic reviews, you do well to visit NACLA (North American Council of Latin Americanists) and COHA (Council on Hemispheric Affairs).
thomas
@robertdsc-PowerBook-now with 27 championships:
never
thomas
@Brian J:
Brian, you obviously didn’t get the memo.
What the locals think doesn’t count. The only improtant thoughts are within the beltway, especially if they are on 15th St., in an addled 80 yo head.
Will
Couldn’t Broder at least have thrown in a quote from Vin Weber, or Alan Simpson, or hell, Howard Baker? Give us something, man!
Mike in NC
I’m reading “Nixonland” and it’s fascinating how Broder’s name pops up every few pages, mainly to indicate how clueless and full of shit he was back in the 1960s. Good that he’s been consistent, though…
Cain
@Col. Klink:
I see a new meme.
heh.
cain
Calouste
@cat48:
Not just Reagan, VA and NJ went from Rep to Dem in 2001, just 8 weeks after 9/11 when Bush had an approval rating of 80% or so. It wasn’t about the President then either.
Donald G
@Andy K:
Try nine elections in a row, since the election of Republican governor John Dalton in 1977, back during the Carter Administration. From the gubernortorial elections of 1981 through 1989, Virginia elected democrats Chuck Robb, Gerry Baliles, and Doug Wilder while consistently going Republican at the presidential level.
Really, far too much is being read into the Virginia election results.
The real test is if the Teabaggers have 1994 level victories in 2010, not the results of two gubernatorial elections.
Anoniminous
Not quite as such.
We’re slowly learning, in the AI ‘biz,’ how to get our programs to Learn Stuff¹ and how to change what it “knows” when new and/or better information comes flowing in. Thus, in the advanced labs, an AI program CAN learn from its mistakes, however clumsily or haltingly.
Unlike Broder who spews out the Same Old Thing in every column.
¹: Apologies for the technical jargon. :-)
ksmiami
Broder – as relevant as Betamax
kay
What I find disgusting is this binge-remorse cycle from media. I can already see it happening here, with this. They realize they went completely crazy with one or another fake narrative, and they dial it back.
If they’re all going to announce Democrats are in some death spiral, they should have to own that prediction, for the next six months, without the 24 hour swinging back and forth.
They’re like drunks who swear to sober up, and then indulge in a spectacular bender nearly weekly. Why not show some restraint and independent thought before they climb on whatever bandwagon is going by?
How many times are they gonna get played like this?
different church-lady
Umm… it was written by an artificial intelligence program.
Deb T
Broderdammerung! Priceless.
mai naem
What, nothing about the Democratic gain in upstate NY after over a hundred year drought? Nothing about the Conservative Republicans losing a valuable congressional seat they had held for over a hundred years?
jetan
The Boys On The Bus has the classic write up on Broder from the McGovern campaign. Broder already had the reputation, along with Bob Novak, Johnny Apple and Jack Germond as one of the premier political reporters. Not pundit….reporter. The upshot is he completely did not see the McGovern phenomenon coming. In his mindset the obvious and inevitable candidate was Ed Muskie (the Hillary of that race). So even then his disposition was completely and utterly oriented toward the conventional. Then, as now, he understood little of grassroots organizing and almost nothing of the math involved in generating a primary win. The book has a great scene where one of the other reporters tells him “Go out and knock on some doors. It’s not out there for Muskie.”
And why is it democrats always engage in “Grassroots organizing” or “netroots crankery” whereas the teabaggers are an Authentic Populist Uprising?