Brooks-Broder Derangement Syndrome

Mike Rappaport "hates" David Brooks and finds him "a despicable character."  Why?  He lets John Hinderaker explain: Brooks . . . knows where his bread is buttered. He makes his living as a "conservative" who can reliably be counted on to sell out conservatives and Republicans at every opportunity. In this instance, Hinderaker is reacting to Brooks' characterization of Sarah Palin's "death ...

Political Appointment Process Broken

H. Rodgin Cohen, "the leading candidate for Deputy Treasury Secretary, has withdrawn from consideration," George Stephanoupoulous reports.  He adds, "Cohen had risen to the top after the withdrawal last week of expected deputy treasury secretary pick Annette Nazareth." Something's wrong with this picture. To be sure, Cohen wasn't technically an appointee.   Still, as Glenn Reynolds pointed out yesterday, the list of failed ...

Obama-McCain Debate: High Stakes

The first presidential debate will take place Friday night. David Broder believes the stakes are very high. McCain, after enjoying a brief boost from the Republican convention and the unveiling of Sarah Palin, has fallen back into his pre-convention position, lagging slightly behind. Obama still is unable to lock down 270 electoral votes because he is falling well short of ...

Why The Campaign is So Negative

David Broder gets both candidates to agree that the campaign has gotten more bitter than they'd like and is intigued by John McCain's suggestion, "I think we could have avoided at least some of this if we had agreed to do the town hall meetings." The early blogospheric response to this has come mostly from Obama supporters who, not surprisingly,  ...

Dumbing the Presidency

David Broder uses Elvin Lm's book The Anti-Intellectual Presidency to argue not only that presidential speeches have steadily dumbed down over the years, which we might have guessed, but that this dumbs down public policy, too. In what must have been a heroic effort, he applied standard techniques of content analysis to state papers of every president from Washington to the ...

Blogs Then and Now

Aaron Brazell is doing some research on the evolution of blogging in recent years and has asked for my input. [Update: The result, "Political Blogging 2.0," is now up.] I started OTB in January 2003 and have seen a lot of change. I should note at the outset that my experience is almost entirely with the political blogosphere, a ...

Broder and Kornheiser take WaPo Buyouts

The Washington Post has offered another round of buyouts to its staff and two of their biggest names, David Broder and Tony Kornheiser, have opted for the cash. In Broder's case, it appears to be mostly an accounting move, as he'll still be doing what he does now, just on a contract basis. The column you have been running will not change ...

Super Tuesday Postmortem (Updated)

As I write this, a bit after 6 am, we don't know the results of all the Super Tuesday states. What we do know if that Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee did much better than expected but that Hillary Clinton and John McCain strengthened their perception as frontrunners by winning California and New York, the biggest prizes of the ...

Obama Mania, David Broder Edition

David Broder argues that a win in New Hampshire would render the Democratic nomination Barack Obama's to lose. I wouldn't go quite that far. It would probably give him the momentum to take South Carolina, where Hillary Clinton holds a statistically insignificant lead. Still, she's absolutely mopping the floor with him in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, New ...

Musharraf Pledges Elections by Mid-February

Pervez Musharraf has pledged to hold elections in February rather than postponing them for a year as previously announced. Pakistan's parliamentary elections will he held by mid-February, a month later than planned, the country's military ruler said Thursday, a day after President Bush urged him to hold the vote on time. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto denounced President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's pledge as ...

Bloomberg-Hagel 2008: Third Party Fantasy #9

If we needed confirmation that silly season is in full swing, we need look no further than David Broder's wistful column this morning about a possible independent bid by a Michael Bloomberg-Chuck Hagel ticket. Aside from the standard "Washington is gridlocked in partisan battle between two equally spent parties" and people are tired of it mantra, there's no ...

Mob Rule or Representative Democracy?

David Broder argues that, despite "out of touch politicians" being crowd pleasing fodder for stump speeches, modern communications have actually made decision makers too responsive to a poorly informed, emotional public's will. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, philosophers have written of the healthy tension that normally exists between the understanding and strategies of leaders and the sentiments and opinions of ...

Harry Reid Embarrassing the Democrats?

The dean of the Washington commentariat, David Broder, terms Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid "The Democrats' Gonzales." Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance. If you answered " Harry Reid," give yourself an A. ...

Blogs Readers a Force Multiplier in the Army of Davids

LAT has a very interesting profile of TPM's Josh Marshall and the occasional ability of blogs to get ahead of the mainstream press. In December, Josh Marshall, who owns and runs TPM , posted a short item linking to a news report in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the firing of the U.S. attorney for that state. Marshall later followed up, adding ...

Bush the New Comeback Kid?

David Broder argues that, like Bill Clinton in 1994, George W. Bush is using the loss of Congress in midterm elections to reassess his tactics and thereby mounting a surprising political comeback. In addition to some deft moves in deflecting the debate over his proposed Iraq troop surge, Broder believes Bush is broadening his support by reaching out and ...