How You Can Be Certain Obama Blew It

Kaplan Daily's dean of Washington Beltway gasbags David "Bipartisan" Broder got so excited about the Obama/ Rethug deal on tax cuts that he tinkled in his Depends.

Sunday START Reading

Are Rethugs really more interested in scoring political points against Obama than in safeguarding U.S. national security by ratifying the START treaty? Will the Washington punditocracy call them on it?

On the first question, read Joseph Picard's take in the International Business Times.

On the second question, read Doug J's post in Balloon Juice on how David Broder -- the personification of the Washington old-boy "insider" (very old boy)-- sees the START treaty as an opportunity for President Obama to proffer his posterior on the altar of Sen. Jon Kyl (Rethug-crAZy), for the sake of proving his seriousness about "bipartisanship." (Broder chooses to ignore the fact that a substantial bipartisan consensus already exists to move ahead with START: Sen. Lugar, Henry Kissinger, James Baker, George Schultz, Brent Scowcroft, Robert Gates, Adm. Mullen, etc., and the majority of the national security establishment, for example.)

Broder Doesn't Disappoint

Gasbag Villager emeritus David "Bipartisan" Broder has yet another installment in his 4,696-part series, "Bipartisanship Good, Partisanship Bad - Except When Republicans Are In Charge." A summation of his "analysis" follows:

1) It might not be so bad if the Dems lose the House and/or Senate; why?
2) Things were pretty bipartisan good when my friend Newt Gingrich was Speaker and counterbalanced Bill "Monica" Clinton; they done some good things together!
3) Missy McConnell and John Boner, if they were in charge, would be better than Pelosi and Reid because, well, they're Republicans!
4) As far as I can recall, things are always better when Republicans are in charge; then no one has to worry about bipartisanship because they always do what's best!
5) Send my check ASAP.

Cage Match at The Kaplan Daily?

Washington's "Dean" of Washington gasbag pundits David Broder takes aim at fellow Kaplan Daily snark meister Dana Milbank in his column today. The subject: is Rahmbo playing the blame game inside the White House to the detriment of the President? Key quotes from the Dean:

"None of this would rise above the level of petty Washington gossip except that some of Emanuel's friends are so eager to exonerate him that they are threatening to undermine the president. Milbank, presumably reflecting what he hears, calls Obama 'airy and idealistic' and says he readily succumbs to 'bullying' from Republicans and Democrats alike. I hope the mullahs in Iran don't believe this.

From too many years of covering politics, I have come to believe as Axiom One that the absolute worst advice politicians ever receive comes from journalists who fancy themselves great campaign strategists."

Oh snap, Dean! Right in the upstart's groin from the crotchety old Dean. We'll see whether his "friend" -- as the Dean calls Milbank -- fires back.

No, "The Lady" is NOT Good, Dean

The blogosphere is buzzing with comments on "Dean of Washington Gasbags" David Broder's op/ed paean to Winky You Betcha in the Kaplan Snow Daily today. We like HuffPo's Jason Linkins' takedown best. (Sample Broderism: "The lady is good." Someone please wake him up!) The early Valentine to the Snowbilly Grifter doesn't come as much of a surprise, given that The Dean is famously one or two hundred beats too late on the pulse of the country, viz the latest poll. What a sad old man to write this drool, and what a sad newspaper for publishing it.

High Broderism as Conventional Wisdom

"It is now as certain as anything can be in politics that 2010 will be a painful year for Democrats -- a year of high unemployment, staggering deficits and a growing list of casualties from an unresolved war." -- Dean of Washington Gasbags David "Broderella" Broder in today's Kaplan Daily. Certain?!? It's 11 months until election day 2010. If events change and change again as they have in the last 11 months, at the beginning of which Democrats were riding very high indeed, who's to say with certainty what the political landscape will be? Only the most lazy gasbag who gets his deep thoughts over lunch paid by a Rethug spinmeister, that's who. I'm cutting this op/ed out for revisiting ll months from now.

(Image: The Dean of Gasbags, aloft)

The "Dean" Is Dinged

Nice comeback from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Villager Media "Dean" David Broder, who criticized the health insurance reform package before the Senate, as a "retiree who writes a column once in a while" for the increasingly neocon Washington Post. The Dean never met a Rethug that he didn't want to compromise with, when he wasn't at Karl "Turdblossom" Rove's pretend "ranch" having dinner.

The Dean will need to change his Depends after that slam. Or not.

Advice Not Followed

A recent obituary for Wall Street Journal reporter Alan Otten contained this nugget of information:

"David Broder. . .said he considered Mr. Otten his mentor. Broder told Washingtonian that Mr. Otten had provided crucial early advice: Reporters should avoid becoming the buddies of those they covered."

David "The Dean" Broder, of course, was famous for cozying up to Bushit slug Turdblossom Rove, as The Dean himself memorably recounted:

"Let me disclose my own bias in this matter. I like Karl Rove. In the days when he was operating from Austin, we had many long and rewarding conversations. I have eaten quail at his table and admired the splendid hill country landscape from the porch of the historic cabin Karl and his wife Darby found miles away and had carted to its present site on their land." -- May 18, 2003, Washington Post

So the Dean dispenses advice that he himself ignores. Anyone surprised?

Sunday WaPo Reading

It looks like both Fred Hiatt and Broderella have gone on vacation and let someone else write their op/eds today. On the other hand, Kathleen Parker, whose occasional bouts of sanity we've noted here, is back on the "Bush-good, Obama-not-so-much, media-biased" wingnut train.

Hiatt goes over the "three camps" in the health reform debate, concluding that the camp represented by the Rethugs and their insurance industry financers ain't got nothing but fear mongering.

Broder, who must be taking a colonic in Florida while someone writes his latest entry into the conventional wisdom, passes modest, albeit of course highly caveated judgment on the efficacy of the stimulus on stopping the economy's slide into Great Depression II.

Parker is back from her walk on the sane side to argue that Obama has not been "treated to the same scrutiny" as Dumbya was on the subject of a Faith-Based Initiatives program in the White House. Well, lady, the reason Dumbya was "scrutinized" was because of well-founded suspicions that the primary function of the initiative was to funnel money to his Christian religious right base (hello, Revs. Dobson and Robertson, have a grant Tony Perkins). Had he not been "scrutinized," Turdblossom and his minions would have run roughshod over the system. Nice try, though.

Broder's Angst

It's almost "torture" to read David "Bipartisan" Broder's op/ed in today's WaPo. If the poor geezer isn't sure what "torture" is (since he puts "s around the word), he should ask those of us who have to suffer him week in and week out. This useless douchebag is of the "nothing to see here, move along" school when it comes to his former cronies and lunch-mates at The Palm. They've suffered enough by being kicked out of office! Why "humiliate" them further?

How much longer will the Post "torture" us with his presence?

The "Dean" Waxes Nostalgic

WaPo gasbag and "dean" of Washington political reporters David Broder wistfully mourns the exit of some of his Republican lunch pals in his column today, "Missing a Few Sages." Broder, who is missing a few pages, will clearly have to find some other meal tickets who will provide him a nourishing lunch, a cocktail or three, and a few "tips" for future columns. It's not so much that we quibble with his companions (Sens. Warner and Hagel, in particular, are honorable men). It's the insider whoring we object to.

We're still eagerly awaiting the day when he leaves town permanently to sit on Turdblossom's porch in Texas and reminisce about the good ol' bipartisan days when the Rethugs were in charge.

How did we forget this doofus in our Hackwhackers awards?!

(Image: Broder wafting above the partisan fray)

Broder's Man Crush

David Broder, WaPo gasbag, "dean" of has-been columnists, and worshiper at the altar of bipartisanship, has weighed in on the first Obama/ McNastymaverick debate. Short version: McCain was the alpha male and outpointed Obama, who did not embarrass himself, but somehow America saw a different debate and definitely tilted toward Obama.

Yeah, that was right on, Dean! (Psst! Wipe off the BBQ sauce on your chin!)

How much longer will the Post carry this skater on the thin ice of his former glories, this lunch partner of the party hacks, this senile rocker on Karl Rove's Texas hill country porch?

Wanker of the Week

Yes, it's our favorite Washington gas bag, David "Bipartisan" Broder, with this morning's column, "Listening to the Governors." The dean of beltway thumbsuckers uses his column to extol the wisdom of governors, especially "the lessons of bipartisanship." Then, at the end, comes this clinker that wins him the trophy:

"Both John McCain and Barack Obama have their roots in a Congress suffering from massive public disdain. They need to listen to governors - and learn."

Fact check: Years in Congress - St. John McBush (26); Barack Obama (4). Anyone with even a passing grasp on reality knows Obama spent most of his adult life as a community organizer and later as an Illinois State Senator (we're sure he did a lot of listening to the Governor of Illinois at the time).

(Photo: Broder using his own gas to effect "lift off.")

Our Broken Media, Cont'd.

Vanity Fair's James Wolcott unloads on the "Dean" of Washington pundits David "Broderella" Broder's lofty dismissal of people who think that Bushit and Dead Eye should be impeached and tried before the Senate for lying us into a war in Iraq. While it's too late in the day for that proposal to have any traction, Broderella's response demonstrates what contempt he has for the soldiers and families that have sacrificed so much that he and other inside-the-beltway "villagers" of the national media/punditocracy.

(photo: Broderella strumming a tune on the cabin of Karl Rove's porch)