Dunce Broder:

"The Dean" writes: (emp add)

McCain -- like the heroes of FDR's and Truman's time -- disdains partisanship and searches for the national interest, wherever he can find it.

[Obama] has yet to demonstrate, as McCain has, the backbone to challenge the prevailing interest groups in his own party. ...

[McCain and Obama] are products of the Senate, but congressional recalcitrance will test them as much as any new president. One would have to give McCain the edge on both his willingness and ability to confront the demands of a Democratic Congress.

[Taking those remarks in reverse order]

How about that? A Republican president is more likely than a Democratic president to confront a Democratic Congress. And that is supposed to "give the edge" to McCain on the change issue. Plus the notion that more change is accomplished through confrontation than skillful negotiation. Broder, old as he is, has completely forgotten how much real change (e.g. civil rights, Medicare) that Lyndon Johnson pushed through Congress when he was president, largely through compromise and deals - as opposed to pissing everybody off.

The other thing is that for Broder, challenging interest groups in a party is all that matters, regardless of the policy positions of those groups. Which makes it very clear that David Broder doesn't care about policy.

Actually, all Broder cares about is getting a Republican in the White House this election year.

Finally, it's good to see Broder claim that McCain is like FDR and Truman. Yet somehow Broder forgot to show how McCain is a modern-day Lincoln, Sergeant York, George Washington, Pope John XXIII, Shakespeare and Sir Issac Newton. That'll probably be in his next column.


posted by Quiddity at 9/07/2008 02:34:00 AM