David Broder makes it official: his is my most hated pundit

[Cocoa]

primarily based on his inflated reputation. :puke:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/09/AR2006010901431.html

<snip>

DeLay's saga appears to be a classic case of pride going before a fall, with a hard-edged, arrogant political operative tripped up by his own tactics. The onetime pest exterminator is not someone for whom one sheds tears.

<you KNOW there's a "but" coming...>

But for some reason I cannot escape the sensation that DeLay is a man caught in a time warp, the victim of a tradition far antedating his coming to Congress in 1985.

If Tom DeLay was blind to the perils of mixing money and politics, business and government, he was true to the tradition of his state, where the long-dominant Democratic Party plumbed all possible permutations of that intimate connection.

To take but one example, consider the phone conversation between Lyndon B. Johnson and George Brown, chairman of the board of Brown & Root, the construction giant, on Jan. 2, 1964, soon after Johnson became president, as quoted in "Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964."

more...

[tularetom]

1. David Broder , the "Dean" of DC reporters

is senile and should be put out to pasture reporting on Garden Club meetings in Bumfuck Utah. If he wants to go back 40 years to point out a Dem scandal, go back 80 and check out Teapot Dome or go back 140 years and look at Credit Mobilier. All repub scandals. STFU broder.

[acmejack]

2. In this case he is correct.

LBJ really was the quintessential wheeler-dealer. What Broder is saying about Texas politics is pretty much true, sad, but true.

[Hardrada]

3. I think so too.

I've heard a lot of stuff about LBJ over the years.

[sandnsea]

4. Yeah he was

But let's not forget how the party has flipped since those years. I doubt LBJ would run as a Dem today.

[Cocoa]

5. I'm not buying it

it's "true" in Chicago politics too, and when the pundits there responded to George Ryan corruption, and continue to respond to Mayor Daley corruption, by saying that's the way it's done in Chicago, I think it's just as bogus.

Corruption may be "local color" to the elite pundits, but it has real consequences for the rest of us. :mad:

[Call me Deacon Blues]

6. Don't be so quick to judge LBJ

He was a wheeler-dealer to be sure, but the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act could NOT have been passed without him. Kennedy was hedging on them before he was assassinated, and who's to say if they would have been passed if he had lived? Can you think of any Republican who would have passed them? I can't, and I'm "from" that time, so to speak. And don't forget, his VP in 1964 was Hubert Humphrey, and you can't get much more liberal than that. Johnson would never have become a Republican.

[acmejack]

12. My father served on LBJ's Texas staff.

So I had the opportunity to meet him several times. I admire his accomplishments and don't deny the good he did. His methods and his political opportunism are facts however.

[Call me Deacon Blues]

13. What's the old saying?

He may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch!

[tenshi816]

14. That's funny, LBJ was a second or third cousin of my dad's

and he used to say exactly the same thing about him!

Of course, as he got older my dad became more and more conservative and then went all the way and became a Republican.

Edited for typo.

[oasis]

7. That old timer knows how American prestige has diminished under Chimpy's

administration. The fourth estate is a total wreck because they backed a Chimp that never had any intention of delivering.

Broder knows the score.

[Cocoa]

8. he said Katrina was going to be Bush's opportunity to shine

I kid you not.

[oasis]

9. He was right. Bush had the opportunity, but in his loser fashion, blew it.

I'm not a fan of the old guard pundits and I dislike many of the new ones. That old fart Broder has been around long enough to know plenty. He's not a total shill like Nora O'Donnell, Wolf Blitzer or Howard Kurtz.

He's a harmless ol' coot.

[KharmaTrain]

10. A Machine Is A Machine...

Some can help the "powerless"...such as the heavy patronage and favors a system like Chicago provided that kept that machine in power for decades. Then there's the Repugnican model where it's all for the rich and powerful...replacing a "welfare state" with a corporate welfare one.

Johnson was a wheeler-dealer. That's what made him a great Senate leader and helped push through Civil Rights legislation and was a big proponent of government as a positive agent of change...a New Deal Dixiecrat. Being a dixiecrat, he played the power game and rose to the top cause he could outscrew the next guy. Another Democrat who came up that way was Harry Truman...who started out as a toadie of the Kansas City machine.

Broder's trying to rationalize what "turned DeLay bad"...the fallen angel story. Sorry, no sale here. This human excrement was corrupt from the moment he announced running for public office and never looked back. His legacy will be told in the history books next to Albert Fall.

[Cocoa]

11. Peggy Noonan takes the same tack

to the extent that one can make sense out of her "The Steamroller"

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/