David Broder - RIP

lol shall I even try to mutter the expected things?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/09/AR2011030902821.html?hpid=top

conventional 'wisdom' just got younger

By two months.

Broder wasn't always as irrelevant as he has been lately. Back when there was a substantial middle ground in US politics, he was one of its central voices. Between his own aging and the changes in Congress that accelerated with Gingrich's ascendency, his columns had no vitality at all in the 00's. Too bad. He played a useful role, once.

I read his columns fixating on his definitions of moderation and bipartisanship for years, and they nearly always bugged me. He at least seemed less arrogant than the rest of the insiders.

Why he sucked.

During the Clinton years, I got to like him on the Sunday morning shows. He did seem out of it at times in 2008. I remember him praising McCain towards the end for keeping everything elevated. I wondered which election he was following.

He sucked every week on Bob Williams' XMPR show. Rip, I guess.

never gave a fuck about this dude

During the Clinton years, I got to like him on the Sunday morning shows.

especially when he called on Clinton to resign as the only "honorable thing" he could do.

He was hardly alone on that. I mean that I liked his manner, his temperament; I don't have to agree with every single pronouncement from someone to like them. One thing I liked about him is that he wasn't big on sarcasm.

That was his problem though! The guy was this Dickensian grind, so self-assured, positively granitic in his received wisdom.

He was an old guy who had some romanticized, false version of a time when everything was more civil. I don't mind that at all. If what's replaced him is the way some people conduct themselves on those shows today, you're welcome to it. As far as his received wisdom, I never knew David Broder well enough to make that call.

It isn't just his demeanor, clemenza. He had no problem tut-tutting critics who demanded investigations into Bush-era crimes. Who wants Broderian evenhandedness if it it treats every act the same?

and he was a horribly pedestrian writer too.

his columns were a useful gauge on what Beltway people were thinking and talking about. but you could say that about a zillion other journos these days and since his writing wasn't all that i only kept track of whatever he wrote second-hand.

RIP, tho' ... at least he didn't eat kittens.