In yesterday's Washington Post (2/6/11), David Broder likened the U.S. position on Egypt to being a fan of the hapless Chicago Cubs: Big things are happening all around you, but you have no way to do anything about it.

That is the reality that confronts President Obama today. His hands are tied while Egypt erupts.

At first he expressed support and sympathy for the democratic forces filling the streets and appreciation for the Egyptian military holding fire. But when it became clear that Mubarak was on his way out, sooner or later, it dawned on everyone that the Muslim Brotherhood might seize on the resulting power vacuum and chaos to erect a hostile regime on the banks of the Suez Canal.

Whom do you root for in a situation like this?

It actually hasn't "dawned on everyone" that the Muslim Brotherhood will "erect a hostile regime" in Egypt. Even a casual observer of the uprising in Egypt would likely encounter commentary and analysis that debunks the argument that the Muslim Brotherhood is about to turn Egypt into Iran.

Broder's contribution to the discussion is in line with that of other establishment pundits who express alarm at the prospect of Egyptian democracy.

One of the more annoying corporate media storylines since the midterms dwells on whether or not Barack Obama will move to the "center" in order to have better luck in the 2012 elections. The conventional wisdom is that Bill Clinton did this after terrible losses in the 1994 midterms, and his "triangulation" proved once and for all that successful Democrats move to the right.

There are several reasons this is nonsense--Clinton was more or less the original DLC "New Democrat," so he was consciously and conspicuously to the right of the party base all along. The press wanted to nudge him even further to the right. The idea that Obama should finally break with the left is equally nonsensical, since he's been happy to cross the base for two years.

It's telling that some of the strongest support for Obama's tax compromise has come from right-wing columnists and Guardians of the Political Center like David Broder. Broder's Post colleague Dana Milbank joined that crowd over the weekend, writing (12/12/10):

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of President Obama.

I'm not particularly proud of the tax-cut deal he and the Republicans negotiated. But I'm proud that he has finally stood firm against the likes of Peter DeFazio.

It's not the policy, then--it's the fact that Obama stood up to a "hard-core liberal." Apparently Obama has been letting such Democrats control his policy decisions so far, "to his peril over the past two years." This was what doomed the healthcare debate, according to Milbank--Obama let liberals waste time supporting the public option. Paul Krugman responds:

The debate over the public option wasn't what slowed the legislation. What did it was the many months Obama waited while Max Baucus tried to get bipartisan support, only to see the Republicans keep moving the goalposts; only when the White House finally concluded that Republican "moderates" weren't negotiating in good faith did the thing finally get moving.

So look at how the Village constructs its mythology. The real story, of pretend moderates stalling action by pretending to be persuadable, has been rewritten as a story of how those DF hippies got in the way, until the centrists saved the day.

That media mythology is deep. This weekend, NBC Meet the Press anchor David Gregory wondered:

You know, Harold, the question was, was this a Sister Souljah moment, to go back to the Clinton era, for President Obama, standing up to the base?

Clinton's "Sister Souljah moment" came before he was even president--a poor example of a chastened president moving to the "middle."  But that timeline is mostly forgotten--as are Clinton's other moves to the right, many of which came before the 1994 midterms.

Even stories that try to knock down the Clinton/Obama comparison-- like Peter Baker's Week in Review article in the New York Times (12/12/10)--wind up having to play along with the storyline. As Baker noted about Clinton's surprise appearance at a White House press conference:

Equally riveting and astonishing, Mr. Clinton's blast-from-the-past performance in the White House briefing room on Friday afternoon reinforced the impression of political déjà vu, the sense that once again a Democratic president humbled by midterm elections was pivoting to the center at the expense of his own supporters.

Baker goes on to explain why the comparison misses the mark, but it's telling that this history lesson is the exception in the media and not the rule. Apparently there is something irresistible about moving Democrats even further to the right.

The Dean is happy.

Washington Post columnist and "dean" of the Beltway press corps David Broder was one of the few people (not counting Republicans) who stood up to applaud Barack Obama's tax deal. Under the I-am-not-making-this-up headline "Centrist on the Rise," Broder (12/9/10) congratulated Obama, who has "separated himself from the left of his own party and staked a strong claim to the territory where national elections are fought and won: the independent center."

Obama has "begun to regain focus as the pragmatic liberal that he is--not the hard-line socialist Republicans make him out to be but a president far more practical and down to earth than his critics on the liberal flank of the Democratic Party. "

Reclaiming  the "center," of course, mostly means trouncing your base--and that's what Broder is cheering:

When their constituents see the fatter paychecks, Democratic members of Congress will have a hard time sustaining their carping about the lost opportunity to engage the GOP in an old-fashioned campaign against the fat cats.

Obama's move "wasn't a Sister Souljah moment," Broder warns, but this move to the right  has given Obama a chance "to define himself, more clearly than ever before, as a raging moderate." His conclusion: "This was the best showing for Obama in many months."

But wait a second. How exactly does a deficit hawk like Broder--who recently called for a drastic, British-style austerity program (FAIR Blog, 10/25/10)--reconcile Obama's base-bashing tax cuts with the hundreds of billions it will add to the federal debt? Apparently bashing liberals is a higher short-term priority; in the long-term, this will all somehow make slashing government spending easier:

Also, the $900 billion this deal will add to the national debt increases the pressure on Obama and Congress to undertake the kind of tough-love budgetary changes outlined by the presidential commission on deficits.

So the rich get tax cuts now, and the rest of us get "tough love" for the foreseeable future. That's "centrism," David Broder-style.

Beware: The dean of the D.C. press corps is disappointed.

In his Washington Post column today ("Dodgeball for Democrats," 11/18/10), David Broder leads off with this:

When the rules of the House of Representatives forced the Democrats to confront a painful choice among their leaders, they did what Democrats are often inclined to do. They changed the rules.

Usually, such a stunt would matter only to the members affected by the change. But this one sends a dangerous signal at a crucial moment, when both parties are being tested on their willingness to respond to the lessons of the last election. This is a disquieting development.

Egad! What was this disquieting stunt that the rule-breaking Democrats pulled off? As Broder explains, losing the Congressional majority normally means losing one leadership position (majority leader); so the party would have a minority leader, a whip and a chair. But since Pelosi is staying on to serve as minority leader, the Democrats have four leaders for three positions. So Pelosi created a position called "assistant leader" in order to keep veteran African-American lawmaker James Clyburn in a leadership role.

I know, I am as outraged as you by this "dangerous" rule-breaking. Funny thing is, a few days prior something very similar was  happening on the Republican side. The new Republican majority, facing leadership challenges from Tea Party-backed lawmakers,  created two new positions for incoming freshmen.

Does any of this actually matter much? Not to most people. But David Broder isn't most people; while he acknowledges that this wouldn't make a difference in normal times, these are certainly not normal times:

But we are about to start a Congress in which everything depends on the willingness of the leadership in both parties to face up to hard choices--on the budget, Afghanistan and a dozen other issues.

Too often in the past, Democrats have avoided making hard choices by throwing more money in the pot or taking similar self-indulgent steps. When it came to the stimulus legislation and health-care reform, for example, Democrats spent to buy votes rather than make tough choices.

The Democrats' unwillingness to face the hard choice in this internal fight sends exactly the wrong signal.

You see, it's not really about what James Clyburn's job title is at all. Democrats are "self-indulgent" money-wasters who "buy votes"--though the examples Broder cites (health care and stimulus) were instances where the party, in an effort to attract Republican and/or Blue Dog support, trimmed their sails, winding up with a stimulus package many thought was too small and a healthcare plan that lacked a public option or a serious effort to control drug costs.

It's too bad the Democrats aren't ready to be serious. I mean, they're not even willing (yet) to follow Broder's advice and start bombing Iran.

Washington Post columnist David Broder sees one way for Barack Obama to demonstrate leadership after the midterms--push for war with Iran. Lest one be accused of misrepresenting his argument, this is what he wrote in his October 31 column, which starts out talking about the how a president can influence the economy:

What else might affect the economy? The answer is obvious, but its implications are frightening. War and peace influence the economy.

Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II.

Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.

I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history.

"I am not suggesting" inciting war with Iran, Broder insists. He's just saying it will bring the country together, fix the economy and make Obama one of the greatest presidents of all time.

One strand of conventional wisdom among elite D.C. reporters is that losing the midterm elections would be a good thing for the White House. Hence New York Times reporter Peter Baker (10/24/10):

WASHINGTON — Let there be no mistake: President Obama wants the Democrats to win next week's midterm elections. His voice has gone hoarse telling every audience that from Delaware to Oregon. But let's also acknowledge this: Although he will not say so, there is at least a plausible argument that he might be better off if they lose.

The reality of presidential politics is that it helps to have an enemy.

I have to think that people who don't live in the Beltway bubble, but who do nonetheless follow politics pretty closely, would find it strange to think that the Republican minority does not currently fill the role of Obama's "enemy." Though Baker's notion of an enemy is pretty flexible; he suggests that Obama might be able to "forge agreements with Republicans on issues like the economy, energy and education" after the Democrats lose--i.e., moving far enough to the right that he would be pursuing policies that Republicans would be likely to support.

This suggestion is taken to the extreme by the Dean of the D.C. Press, the Washington Post's David Broder, who wrote a whole column (10/24/10) admiring the deep austerity measures being adopted in Britain. Massive spending cuts and the slashing of government payroll? If only it could happen here! And the surest route would be for Republicans to win big next Tuesday, which would bring us some sort of bipartisan Nirvana:

The American political system virtually precludes the possibility of a coalition government. But the midterm elections provide the opportunity for a similar breakthrough.

If Republicans emerge next month with sufficient leverage in the House and Senate to approach Obama with a proposition, they could insist that he "do a Cameron" when it comes to federal spending: a radical rollback now in the welfare state in return for a two-year truce on such policy questions as repeal of the healthcare law.

The vehicle could well be Obama's strong endorsement of the December 1 report from his fiscal responsibility commission, which is expected to emphasize spending discipline over raising revenue. This would offer major gains to both parties, and set the stage for another experiment in the British model.

By the accounts of credible economists (New York Times, 10/22/10; Guardian, 10/25/10), Britain's plan to slash spending and raise taxes in the midst of a deep downturn is a recipe for economic disaster. If the U.S. political system makes it difficult to follow in British footsteps, that's one thing to be said for the U.S. political system.

David Broder--or an automated David Broderesque column-generator--bemoaned once again (Washington Post, 10/14/10) that "As the Gulf Between GOP and Democrats Widens, the Center Is Lost." To illustrate this dire situation, Broder (or the Broderbot) cited congressional voting patterns:

Bill Galston, the Brookings Institution's resident political philosopher, was the first of the day to point out that, statistically speaking, the center had already disappeared. He was referring to the congressional voting studies, which I have previously cited, showing that, apparently for the first time, there is no overlap between the most liberal Republican in the House and the most conservative Democrat when it comes to roll-call votes.

Historically, there have always been a few Republicans who voted often with the Democrats and a few more Democrats who lined up regularly with the Republicans. But now the ideological lines are more sharply drawn, and the distance between the parties is greater.

The phenomenon of party polarization is not brand new, though--Broder is referring to VoteView, a mathematical model that arranges lawmakers by how often they vote together, producing a scale that corresponds to the left/right spectrum. It's been finding that every House Republican has been to the right of every House Democrat since 2003. Before that, in the 107th Congress, there was one Democratic representative who voted to the right of several Republicans: James Traficant, who is best remembered for being expelled from the House after being convicted of bribery, racketeering and tax evasion. If only we had more politicians like him....

The fact is that the era of "bipartisanship" that Broder is so nostalgic for was a reflection of the fact that the Democratic Party once had, for historical and tactical reasons, a sizable number of conservative segregationists in it. After the battle for state-enforced segregation was lost, these conservatives drifted to their natural home in the Republican Party. Looking back on a time when urban liberals campaigned under the same banner as Southern racists as some kind of golden age is rather perverse--even for the Broderbot.

Some in the media just can't let go of John McCain. David Broder's column today is really headlined, "John McCain, Your Country Is Calling."

He explains that he wasn't "bothered by the doctrinal compromises the senator made to convince Arizona voters that he was, in fact, a conservative. McCain has always been a realist, doing what was necessary to survive a North Vietnamese prison camp or a tough political trap."

So a senator willing to do whatever it takes to get elected is apparently a badly needed voice of conscience in Washington. OK.

McCain's role, according to Broder, should be something like this:

One obvious area where he will be needed is his favorite field, national security. Iraq, where he was prescient and persistent, still poses challenges, and Afghanistan, where Obama badly needs a Republican partner, is likely to be in crisis before it can be called a success. Behind them looms Iran, which could be this nation's next big test.

Wait--John McCain opposed the Iraq War? No, he supported every effort to escalate the war. Apparently that counts as being "prescient."

Obama "badly needs a Republican partner" on Afghanistan? Last time I checked, there weren't many Republicans opposing his policies; in fact, many have argued that Obama needs to drop any mention of a withdrawal timeline (which is McCain's view). So presumably what Obama--and, also, the country--needs is another voice calling for a longer war.

As for Iran, I'm not sure what McCain's expertise is supposed to be. That "Bomb Iran" song from the 2008 campaign?

Billionaire Pete Peterson has spent a lot of money trying to convince people that Social Security is a serious threat to the country's finances. And it's a message that the corporate media love to echo. So when Peterson's group decided to hold "town hall" meetings to promote fiscal austerity by cutting Social Security and Medicare, one would have guessed that the media would give it some attention.

But a funny thing happened this weekend at these "America Speaks" events. Members of the public, after being given what Roger Hickey calls "misleading background information about the federal deficit and economic options to achieve fiscal 'balance' and future prosperity," got a chance to weigh in on what they thought the most prudent course of action might be. As Thomas Frank points out in the Wall Street Journal today (6/30/10; subscription required), the results were likely a huge disappointment to Peterson:

The event took place as scheduled last Saturday, with thousands of citizens meeting in different cities. They duly absorbed a booklet alerting them to the danger of deficits. They deliberated. And then something funny happened on the way to the consensus.

According to a preliminary compilation of results, participants supported "an extra 5 percent tax" on incomes of greater than $1 million per year (by 68 percent) and an increase in the corporate income tax rate (59 percent). They thought a "carbon tax" was a good idea (64 percent) as well as a "securities transactions tax" (61 percent). On Social Security, austerity was nowhere in sight as 85 percent backed raising the limit on taxable income, and only a miserable 27 percent thought that we should "create personal savings accounts." Majorities favored cutting defense spending and expressed support for further recovery measures even if they increase the deficit.

Raising taxes on the wealthy, a carbon tax, cutting military spending--who ARE these people? It sounds a political agenda that most pundits would tell you is politically impossible. (It also happens to be what a lot of people want, but never mind that.)

Given the media's general enthusiasm for Peterson's propaganda on austerity and Social Security, it's striking how little coverage these town halls have received. But it's hard not to conclude that the public rejection of the media's conventional wisdom is the explanation. A few weeks ago, Washington Post columnist David Broder (5/2/10) lamented the fact that Peterson was apparently not having as much impact on the political discussion as the Tea Party movement: "Peterson's foundation could do the country a favor by uncovering a credible populist Republican who will buck his party's orthodoxy and take that message of fiscal responsibility to the country."

Instead, Peterson's people are trying to spread their message--but the public apparently wants something else entirely.

Washington Post columnist David Broder rounds up some "non-partisan" budget experts-- one of whom, oddly enough, was John McCain's Social Security adviser during his 2000 campaign -- to agree with him that the Democrats' healthcare bills are too expensive.  He closes with this:

The challenge to Congress -- and to Obama -- remains the same: Make the promised savings real, and don't pass along unfunded programs to our children and grandchildren.

This advice would be easier to take from someone who didn't just write that Obama should escalate the Afghanistan war because of the "urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right." Good thing that war doesn't cost anything-- or that if it does, our grandchildren won't mind paying for it.

From ABC World News, 11/11/09:

CHARLIE GIBSON: We understand he's raising new questions about a number of plans that are in front of him. What new questions are there to be asked after all this time?

MARTHA RADDATZ: Well, you would think he'd be through with the questions, Charlie.

Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times (11/15/09):

Barack Obama is in danger of giving deliberation a bad name.

David Broder, Washington Post (11/16/09-- headline: "Enough Afghan Debate")

It is evident from the length of this deliberative process and from the flood of leaks that have emerged from Kabul and Washington that the perfect course of action does not exist. Given that reality, the urgent necessity is to make a decision -- whether or not it is right.

Washington Post columnist David Broder has made a career out of advocating a certain type of corporate centrism--earning him the honorary (?) title of the Dean of the D.C. Press Corps. The formula is pretty simple: Argue that Democratic politicians should move to the right. So with healthcare reform a major issue, Broder's formula is easy: Barack Obama should reject his party's support for a "public option" government plan that would compete against private insurance companies.

Why should Obama do this? Well, according to Broder, the appealing thing is that some lawmakers--mostly Republicans, though he mentions Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and Utah Republican Bob Bennett--are against setting up a public plan. Hence, advocating one isn't very "bipartisan." And therefore there is virtue in tossing the public option overboard:

The time may come--either before or after the House votes on its bill--when Obama may have to demonstrate his flexibility on the issue of a government-run option. Wyden and Bennett are potential allies if he removes what Bennett calls "the rock" blocking a bipartisan bill. And the president couldn't wish for better partners.

This is virtually the same thing Broder always advises: "flexibility," meaning giving up on something Democrats support. And what they would give up is an idea that seemingly has widespread public support-- as does a single-payer plan, but the David Broders of the world can't be bothered to take that seriously. (Broder's Post colleague Dana Milbank lampooned single-payer activists elsewhere in the same day's paper.) What's important to Broder is what's always been important-- for Democrats to be more like Republicans, or at least tailor policy to their liking. The columns write themselves.

Quoting John Dewey's warning about "the proper role of the press in a democracy"--"a class of experts is inevitably so removed from common interests as to become a class with private interests and private knowledge"--Eric Alterman finds it (Nation, 5/6/09) "difficult to imagine a more telling--and disturbing--manifestation of Dewey's prediction than the current torture debate in Washington":

Even after the disgraceful performance of so many armchair warriors during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, who would have dared predict the willingness, nay, eagerness, of respected journalists and pundits to argue in favor of purposeful ignorance? Sadly, many of them have shown less interest in potential war crimes committed by the Bush administration than little Misha Lerner, the Jewish Primary Day School fourth grader who quizzed Condoleezza Rice about her inability to explain the legality of these policies to a group of Stanford students.

While many have made the case to varying degrees, Peggy Noonan made it most explicitly: "Some things in life need to be mysterious," she said of America's role in torturing terrorist suspects. "Sometimes you need to just keep walking." And while defenders of the insider establishment may note, as a mitigating factor, that Noonan is less a journalist than an ex-Reagan flack who plays a journalist on the Wall Street Journal editorial page and ABC's This Week, what, then, to say about David Broder?

And how does Alterman describe the recent writings of the man who "sets a tone for many of his colleagues and represents a goal to which many if not most of them aspire"?--Well, "he, too, advises his colleagues to keep walking, eyes wide shut."

With left-of-center columnists critiquing the Beltway obsession with bipartisanship even in outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, it's no wonder that David Broder is upset (Washington Post, 2/19/09). He calls the idea that Obama should stop worrying so much about attracting Republican support "the worst advice he has received," warning that without reaching out to Republicans, Obama won't be able to "offset protectionist impulses among Democrats," and "Democrats will never tackle Social Security." Horrors!

To be fair, Broder does suggest that Obama can only achieve some other more progressive goals via bipartisanship, but his argument on these issues is farther-fetched:

When it comes to energy, regional and commodity interests will inevitably divide the Democrats. They always do. Oil, coal, natural gas and consumer groups will exert their will. If Obama writes off the Republicans in advance, he will end up with a watered-down bill--or nothing.

The problem with this claim is that, if you look at voting patterns, every Republican in both the House and Senate is to the right of every Democrat. While Broder nostalgically recalls the days of "Lyndon Johnson's forging the great civil rights acts with Sen. Everett Dirksen and Rep. Bill McCulloch, and Ronald Reagan's steering his first budget and tax bill through a Democratic House," the parties no longer include the Republican moderates and Democratic boll weevils that made such ideological crossovers possible.

Realistically, Obama will only be able to increase "bipartisan" support for his proposals by shifting them to the right.  Somehow I don't think that's going to keep Broder up nights.

Washington Post columnist David Broder took up the issue of healthcare policy in his column yesterday ("Health Reform's Moment," 12/14/08). One of FAIR's chief criticisms of media over the past two decades has been the narrow range of sources the media rely on to shape the debate over a given issue. Healthcare is no different, so it was instructive to read the top of Broder's column, where you see who he considers important:

On the same morning that President-elect Barack Obama introduced Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, as his prospective secretary of health and human services and his point man on healthcare reform, a panel of key constituency group leaders met to assess the prospects for success.

Taking the microphone, in turn, at a Washington hotel were the head of Business Roundtable, speaking for leading corporations; the chief executive of Pfizer, the giant pharmaceutical company; the president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the trade association for that industry; and spokesmen for the National Federation of Independent Business, the small-business lobby, and AARP, the senior citizens organization.

All of them agreed that major health legislation has a much better chance of passage in the next Congress than when Bill and Hillary Clinton tried in 1993-94. And so did John Harwood of CNBC and myself, the two journalists invited to be on the panel.

Business groups, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies are the ones who really matter--and who will determine what "reform" ideas are possible, and which are not. It won't take Broder long to conclude--as others in the media have already-- that single-payer healthcare is off the table.