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.