Glenn Greenwald: David Broder: Embodiment of Beltway values

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/07/broder/

Glenn Greenwald
Saturday June 7, 2008 05:50 EDT
David Broder: Embodiment of Beltway values

David Broder, Washington Post chat, yesterday:

Crestwood, N.Y.: So the Senate report -- supported by two Republicans -- supports the conclusion that we all reached several years ago, that Bush and Cheney used propaganda and ginned up intelligence to trick the country into war. If this is not an impeachable offense, what do you define as one? And if an impeachable offense is committed, isn't it the height of irresponsibility for the Democrats to put possible harm to their electoral chances (negligible, in my opinion) ahead of their oaths to the Constitution? How will history look back at this disgraceful chapter in both the executive and legislative branches?

washingtonpost.com: Bush Inflated Threat From Iraq's Banned Weapons, Report Says (Post, June 6)

David S. Broder: You'll have to forgive me, but I am reluctant to see every big policy dispute turned into a criminal or impeachable affair. There needs to be accountability but there also needs to be proportionality. This country is engaged in two wars and has serious, serious domestic problems. To stop everything and attempt to impeach and remove a president who has less than a year to serve would not strike me as the best use of our energy. And for what? So Dick Cheney can be president?

snip//

Indeed. The Beltway media, as its Dean, David Broder, said, has been nothing over the last seven years but "calm and quiet" -- just like well-behaved, respectful children are expected to be. When Scott McClellan used the term "complicit enablers" to describe our press corps, this is the face of that: soothingly assuring the public that there is nothing at all unusual or radical about what's going on in our Government, that everything from torture to warrantless, illegal spying to process-less detentions and the abolition of habeas corpus and even lying our country into war are just standard "policy disputes" that should be resolved in a gentlemanly manner through respectful and civil discourse, not by excessive and mean-spirited weapons such as investigations and prosecutions. As Broder said, the notion that there should be a "sense of urgency" is for people who "get carried away by their own rhetoric."

The same stars of the Liberal Media who paralyzed the country for two years with their fixation on Bill Clinton's sex scandal -- and who relentlessly insisted that he be forced from office -- have spent the last seven years calmly telling us that there is no reason to get all excited or upset by what the administration has been doing. As the administration repeatedly broke multiple laws and degraded every last realm of our political culture, most of our Broder-led media class remained nice and "calm and quiet." Of course they don't believe there should be any consequences for the crimes that have been committed by this administration because, as complicit enablers in all of it, those crimes are also their own.

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[Canuckistanian]

1. History will not look kindly on David Broder, either

In fact, I believe that sometime in 2060 or so, some scholar will be digging up these facts and will be open-mouthed in wonder. A totally corrupt government aided and abetted by media and the legislative branch.

People in other countries have rioted in the streets for much less than these crimes.

[Jakes Progress]

2. Broder is the epitome

of what is wrong with modern journalism. So lost in his own tiny world. You just have to ask how it is possible for dips like this to be employed writing at all.

[tblue37]

3. Not precisely in his own "tiny little world"--lost on the DC cocktail circuit

is more like it.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. K&R

[checks-n-balances]

5. And the pattern will be continue with the next presidency

Greenwald said: "The same stars of the Liberal Media who paralyzed the country for two years with their fixation on Bill Clinton's sex scandal -- and who relentlessly insisted that he be forced from office -- have spent the last seven years calmly telling us that there is no reason to get all excited or upset by what the administration has been doing."

If Obama wins the GE, the "Liberal Media" will find against him to obsess over until they nearly hound him out of office, whereas if it's McCain, he'll continue to get the pass they've already given him.

In fact, there's no reason to believe they'll wait until the GE is over; they'll just continue tomorrow with the pattern they've already started - glossing over McCain's flaws and fixating on anything they can find against Obama.