David Broder, RIP
Here is the Washington Post obit. Very conventional. But I think that conventional tells us something about Washington. Here is a man celebrated as a centrist. But there is only one Republican quoted -- Sen. Dick Lugar (IN) -- and few examples. It's true that Broder was no radical, and wrote a rational column. It's also true, methinks, that his idea of centrism is very Beltway centric. We do learn that he helped write a reappraisal of Dan Quayle. But two big examples in the obit are these: 1) how he badgered George H.W. Bush over his wealth and wondered whether his privileged upbringing removed him from ordinary Americans; and 2) how in a column about bloopers he wrote how he had not criticized George W. Bush over Katrina. Love to hear how other readers react?
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Jul '10
Re: David Broder, RIP
In a momentary fit of de mortuis nil nisi bonum, I link to Fred Barnes' comments on David Broder's passing.
Fit over, I recall R. Emmett Tyrrell's description (in The Conservative Crack-up) of Broder, he and some others having drinks with Reagan: "Broder looked like he most desired a glass of warm buttermilk..."
Jul '10
Re: David Broder, RIP
Well, I'd still trade one David Broder for a dozen Ezra Kleins.
May '10
Re: David Broder, RIP
Door, butt, later. He now must answer to the man upstairs...where there is no A list to gain admittance.
Dec '10
Re: David Broder, RIP
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....Oh, sorry. I was reading David Broder's last book and must of dozed off. Did something happen?
Jul '10
Re: David Broder, RIP
Exactly. Broder was a droning bore, worse on those Sunday morning TV shows than even in print.
Jul '10
Re: David Broder, RIP
Well, so much for de mortuis, eh?
Broder was a Liberal. However, he was also a Liberal in the tradition of Teddy White; both of them did actual reporting. As Kenneth indicates, this is the sort of labor with which Ezra Klein is completely unfamiliar.
In a way, Broder's death is also the death of an era in which people believed in the Unbiased Search for Truth. It wasn't ever Unbiased, of course; and it's almost certainly for the best that it's gone, and it 's certainly more "honest" that we're returning to something more like the 1860 press than the 1960 press. But, damn; even the death of things that you didn't like, but nevertheless marked your youth, make you feel old.