I awoke at five-thirty this morning and was greeted by David Broder's year-end review column (which you can find, among other places, here). Pitched as a series of mea culpas for things he "got wrong" for the year, in fact he merely notes where readers disagreed with him, leaving it very clear he has not changed his mind, except where he was demonstrably wrong, as in his prediction in the Michigan governor's race (I think a lot of people were wrong about that race who called it early).
I just want to highlight a couple things. The last item he mentions is the response he received to a column he wrote on the personal life of Sen. Hillary Clinton. He says concerning the reponse he received (calling them "catcalls") that this is "a tipoff that the subject will be a tough one to handle if she enters the presidential race."
Really.
Doesn't that beg the question as to why her personal life is relevant at all, except to voyeuristic Washington insiders? Doesn't the obsession the Washington Press Clique have with the Clinton's tell us so much more about them than anything they might or might not report about the former President and current Senator?
One thing he missed in his year-end round-up was his nearly ejaculatory column about the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) report. I reviewed the column earlier this month and have little more to add concerning the column itself. I bring it up here because I find it fascinating that Broder would fail to mention this much-hyped, much-ballyhooed report, put forth by the sages of Washington as the salvation of the nation and Presidency of George W. Bush in the face of low poll ratings and an repudiating election has disappeared from view. The President has studiously and quite publicly ignored it. No one in Washington even mentions it, except to say that in no uncertain terms will the United States begin negotiations with Syria or Iran. As the President leans towards sending more troops to Iraq (the opposite both of the electorate's express wishes and the Philosopher-King's recommendations in the ISG report) one might think Broder could say something about the disappearance of what entered the public realm with such triumph, the first trumpeter in the fanfare being Broder himself.
I hear crickets chirruping in the background.
Broder, like the rest of the chummy Capitol Clique, is completely oblivious as to the changes afoot in the country. The era of big conservatism is over. The Republican Party in general, and conservatives in particualr, have shown themselves completely incompetent at the task of serious governance. The politics of fear and division are at an end, because the electorate no longer want to be afraid and desire to be united. This desire is expressed in giving the Democratic Party a chance to prove themselves again as a party of the nation. Combined with the continuing importance of the Internet political communities, and the discovery that one does not have to live in Capitol Hill, NE or Chevy Chase, MD to say something intelligent about politics we find the pundit class superceded by the citizen analyst.
Broder is a dinosaur, the T-rex of a larger group of animals on the way out. Let us all sincerely hope that he, and Tom Friedman, and Bill Kristol, and Cokie Roberts (God, that unctuous woman just drives me to distraction!), and George Will, and the rest of the typing/chattering/lip-flapping, empty-headed Washington nincompoops find gainful employment elsewhere in the coming months, as Americans find their voice again. I sincerely hope Broder comes to understand that, in the words of a typical mid-level manager, his services are no longer required.
Virtual Tin Cup
