Dean Broder on the ISG: More Proof that Retirement Should Be Mandatory (UPDATED Below)

With the publication of the Iraq Study Group report (available here, with a tip o' the hat to Think Progress) the Inside the Beltway gushfest is just beginning. Of course, the overall assesment of the group (ISG hereafter) was leaked weeks ago and has been a topic of much discussion. I want to wait until I actually read the report - it's only 125 pages long, with 73 specific recommendations - before commenting on the report itself. For now, I want to confine myself to a column by David "Dean" Broder that appeared in my local paper this morning, the Rockford Register Star, and should be all over the net soon (Broder publishes on Yahoo, so you can go to the opinion page there to read the full text). The title of the column as it appears here in the northern prairie is "Iraq Study Group: Politics for Grown-ups". Now, I don't know if that was the original title, or one put there by editors locally, or suggested by Broder's editors at the Washington Post Writers Group, or whomever, but I find it interesting that, while it echoes a theme much discussed in the immediate run-up and in the immediate aftermath to the election, the article itself is of a piece with the entire "bi-partisanship is wonderful, let's all get along, let's not fight here folks" mentality that is the hallmark, not of adulthood, but of those frightened of confrontation, risk-averse as it were, in the face of the threat of those who might hold different views.

The gushing in Broder's piece is glaring; the members of the ISG he interviewed, including former Secretary of Treasury and State, former Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and former Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan and current Bush-family water-carrier James Baker; former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Stone Age, er, WY); former Clinton confidante and attorney Vernon Jordan; former Rep. and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta (D - Land of San Francisco values) practically engaged in a circle-jerk of mutual admiration.

"It was a very wonderful experience," former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson of Wyoming told me [Broder] last weekend. "We very quickly stopped considering ourselves as Republicans and Democrats, but as Americans trying to deal with a most urgent problem."
[A]s commission member Vernon Jordan, the Democratic lawyer, noted, they were . . . "professionals" - veterans of public service. . . . "This process has been a lesson in civility."
Leon Panetta . . . said the high averagea age of tghe 10 commissioners contributed to its success. "This is a different generation of policymakers," said Panetta, who at 68 was one of the youngest members [!!!]. "These are people who have very different views but are comfortable trying to understand each other and coming together to solve a terrible issue facing the country."
"No on wanted to see us embarrassed by being unable to come to consensus," Simpson said.
Panetta observed that while most of the commission members had some dealings with each other in their previous positions, they really bonded during their inspection trip to Baghdad earlier this year. "Fifteen hours on the plane together and three days in a tough place - that was a human experience where we shared a lot and really got to know each other," [Jordan] said.

Broder's opening paragraph is an excellent summary of insider disdain, and fear, of partisanship:

Whatever the final effect of the Iraq Study Group report being issued today, for the 10 commission members this was an exhilirating experience, a demonstration of genuine bipartisanship that they hope will serve as an example to the broader political world.

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I have a better idea, Dean. Let's actually have a debate over this "terrible issue" that is not controlled by the phony philosopher kings of a "different generation of policymakers", one of whose youngest members is six years past eligibility for Social Security! How about we get our elected representatives and the President to actually hammer out something - with all views, including strong, partisan, rancorous views being acceptable. The time for "senior statesmen" (former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor excepted) is long past. Neither Baker nor anyone else should try to snatch the President's chestnuts from this fire. Rather than sit in awe of bipartisanship, I would rather hear a real debate where people got nasty, and all twisted and contorted by anger and frustration. You know why? BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE DYING, AND WE HAVE BEEN LIED TO FROM THE START, AND THEY KEEP LYING EVEN AFTER THEY ARE CAUGHT! WE ARE SICK UNTO DEATH OF THE BULLSHIT, INCLUDING BULLSHIT MASQUERADING AS BIPARTISANSHIP! Even if everything the ISG report recommends is good and correct; even if its particulars are enacted by Congress, the fact that the people were excluded from the decision-making process; that the ISG itself had no member who spoke Arabic, let alone had any serious expertise in anything other than governance should force any and all to srutinize every syllable. There was just too much male bonding going on here for this this to be as serious as it purports to be.

As for Broder, one would expect nothing less, or more, than his shallow, whiny, insistence, that if we only acted like the wise ones from Washington, and allowed them to rule in our stead and name, things would be so much better. All this democracy and arguing and nastiness and partisanship (its only partisan, by the way, when Democrats do it) is so distracting from the wisdom of senior statesmen gathered to solve a problem facing our entire country.

It make you want to throw up.

UPDATE: I would like to direct your attention here and here for more succinct, and better written, ways of saying the above, along with a history lesson as to why the ISG included all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. As Duncan says in a comment (not linked, but it's easy to find) on something Tony Snow said today - there is National Unity on Iraq, even if it isn't the kind of national unity government-types and Broder would like.