David Broder is Straining Credulity

11.01.2009

I'm with Joe Klein on this one: If I didn't know better, I'd say David Broder was being facetious when he wrote:

When and if Roland Burris claims the Senate seat from Illinois formerly occupied by Barack Obama, it will represent the greatest climb-down by an incoming president since Sam Nunn turned Bill Clinton around on the issue of gays in the military at the start of Clinton's first term.

Really? Set aside the fact that we've got a sample size of two here. (It's a bit like saying the Phillies World Series victory last fall was the greatest baseball triumph since the Cardinals won in 2006.) The only way letting Roland Burris into the Senate would be analogous to the gays-in-the-military embarrassment is if Obama had dug in his heels, leading to a major dustup with a top Congressional Democrat in which he was ultimately defeated. I'm struggling to see the analogy.

--Noam Scheiber

Posted: Sunday, January 11, 2009 9:57 PM with 7 comment(s)

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dynasysman said:

It helps to remember that over the past eight years, Broder became a major shill for the Bushies (remember his "I like Karl Rove" column?) It's a shame that so much of the WaPo opinion establishment now tells Republican talking points, but what the heck...

January 11, 2009 10:23 PM

WoodyBombay said:

Over the last 15 years, Broder has become the living embodiment of the word "doddering." Which is too bad, because I used to have a boatload of respect for him.

January 11, 2009 10:34 PM

Brent said:

David Broder is straining credulity. In other news, dog bites man.

January 12, 2009 8:49 AM

Geoff G said:

Absolutely Broder's worst column since the last column he wrote. Personally, I think Obama's failure to pick a pooch for his daughters in the quiet time before his inauguration is the worst example of presidential vacillatiion since something Buchanan must have done in the run-up to the Civil War. I need to look in the WaPo archives to see how Broder treated Buchanan back in the day.

January 12, 2009 10:31 AM

Wandreycer1 said:

Remember what how silly he was about Clinton in the first place - shades of Edith Wharton: "oh these barbarians, so disrespectful of our DC tribe. And they won't even flatter me with access either."

January 12, 2009 10:52 AM

jhildner said:

The heights of pish, the summits of posh. Didn't H.L. Mencken say something like that?

January 12, 2009 11:27 AM