Broder Bashes Bloggers While Doing the “Bush Bash”!

BY FRANK J. RANELLI
Friday, September 22, 2006


Washington Post columnist, David Broder falsely declares Joe Lieberman and the recent Republican Senate revolt against Bush as true independence, while bashing bloggers and re-defining the center ground of politics.

Washington Post columnist, David Broder, is doing the magic "shuffle to right, shuffle to the left" dance once again. In his most recent article, "Independence Days", other than a small segment that maligns Bush as being reckless, Broder attacks the Left, feigns aggression to the Right, and ultimately claims the middle ground as being right. Predictably, Broder bounces around with just enough of a "taste" for each side of the aisle and more than wets the appetite of America's "fence sitters".

Broder claims the recent scurrying about in the Senate over the Geneva Convention Common Article 3 is signs of a revolt and a renewed indication of independence by Congress. Hailing this as "the emergence of an independent force in elections", Broder seems to suggest that bipartisanship is blossoming around the Beltway again. Actually, this is nothing more than "coffee-house-smoke-and-mirrors" in a futile attempt to simulate sovereignty from Bush in a heated, mid-term election year.

Alleging super-natural status for Senators exercising their sworn, Constitutional responsibilities with hyperbole such as, "These are not ordinary men", Mr. Broder shamelessly genuflects and proclaims them, "Stars" and "The essence of traditional Reagan conservatism". Padding his assertions with assurance of mention of an authentic moderate, Colin Powell, Broder tries to paint Bush as a pariah and a degenerate among his own party. Essentially, Broder endeavors to elevate a last-minute show of solidarity as dogma that real reform is occurring. Perhaps, in his Grand-Ole'-Party glee, Mr. Border forgot that little line in the Declaration of Independence regarding "that all men are created equal".

If the air around you is beginning to feel stuffy and a case of virtual vertigo has crept over you, it's not the slant of the room or the letters on the page causing it. It's the ever so gentle nudge towards conservatism creating a distinctive lean to the right here. Columnist-in-question, David Broder, affably tries to pander off his preference for the GOP, by claiming this is "the independence party forming on both sides of the aisle". Exclaiming, "The center is beginning to fight back", says Broder, as he then introduces Joe Lieberman as the purported center. While his article loosely hinges on Bush's "extraordinary" rendition of terror detainees, proclaiming Joe Lieberman as a centrist or even as the centerpiece for an article, is less extraordinary and more extraterrestrial.

Now in a rapid descent, Broder's shuffle become more of a mad dash to avoid the fallout of his next instance of lack of lucidity by asserting that Ned Lamont supporters are "vituperative", bloggers of the left are all "angry", and Republican Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Bush sycophant fame, is an "ally of the center". Mixed up in this mess is the contemptible stab at Democratic Senate nominee, Sherrod Brown, by contending that Brown, who has refused Government-paid healthcare as a Congressman for Ohio's 13th district while nearly 46 million Americans are still uninsured, is "offering false hope" of being able to solve our job and trade problems. Note to Mr. Broder, since cozying up to Bush in 2001, Mike Dewine has personally escorted, by way of his voting, the loss of nearly 200,000 jobs out of Ohio alone. Don't you just feel the bipartisanship and the independence now?

Just when you think he has scrambled to the right as far as possible, Broder takes one last bound onto center stage with a sniping snippet of things Americans legitimately care about -- border control, stem cell research, a real living wage, and earned citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants. Of course, the inference is that the now ostensibly centrist forming bubble of these once radical-right "Rovians" will roll out the welcome mat to meet their peers on the other side of the aisle and actual accomplish goals that are good for America.

The apropos statement here is simply, "Not buying it." "It" is the notion that a Congress, who for four years has followed Bush as though he were the Pied Piper of Hamelin, now abruptly wants to serve the public trust and form a co-op to move America's agenda forward. Considering the 109th Congress, majority-lead by the Republicans and not too coincidentally Bush's own party, has voted nearly lock-in-step with Bush's every move, any person of moderate intelligence would see this recent scheme of schmoozing as a political ploy and not fair play.

When Broder's "elephants of the center" and their newly decreed independence from Bush actually start doing some of the heavy lift, such as a straight-line bill and vote on a living wage increase, without granting Paris Hilton another trust fund freebie, that would be a sincere showing of "descent respect" for Americans. Preventing a whitewash and re-write of the Geneva Conventions should not be heralded but heckled for it is the first showing of backbone by Congress since defeating Bush and his ludicrous initiative of selling our port's security to the U.A.E. Until then, America is stuck with these political parasites that drain the poor, fatten the rich, and give real bipartisanship and patriotism a bad name.

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You can write and email David Broder at: davidbroder@washpost.com

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SOURCE: Independence Days, By David S. Broder, Washington Post