David Broder's glorious "New Independents": They're all Republicans.

[VolcanoJen]

His latest Washington Post editorial is even more shrill, nasty, bitter and senseless than usual.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/20/AR2006092001586.html

Choice excerpt:

Now, however, you can see the independence party forming -- on both sides of the aisle. They are mobilizing to resist not only Bush but also the extremist elements in American society -- the vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left and the doctrinaire religious extremists on the right who would convert their faith into a whipping post for their opponents.

Keep in mind that the "independents" he cites in the subsequent paragraphs are exclusively Republicans who already hold office (oh, except for Joe Lieberman, of course). He speaks of the bravery, the maverick rugged individualism of such "independents" as John McCain, John Warner, Mike DeWine, Michael Bloomberg, and Lincoln Chafee. His standard for "independents" is a bit staggering, don't you think?

Let me see if I can get this straight... as long as you're an incumbent Republican, you're one of the good guys and this nation had best see to it that you're all reelected lest Nancy Pelosi become Speaker of the House.

And, you might want to sit down for this next paragraph. Seriously.

I'll wait.

Ready? You've been warned.

Bush was elected twice, over Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, whose know-it-all arrogance rankled Midwesterners such as myself. The country thought Bush was a pleasant, down-to-earth guy who would not rock the boat. Instead, swayed by some inner impulse or the influence of Dick Cheney, he has proved to be lawless and reckless. He started a war he cannot finish, drove the government into debt and repeatedly defied the Constitution.

Get that, everyone? Gore and Kerry were assholes who assaulted the common sensibilities of Midwesterners, while Bush was a down-home, straight-talkin' sweetie-pie the country fell in love with (without any help from guys like David Broder, of course). And then this mean guy Dick Cheney, or some kind of "impulse," stole Bush's brain, and that's why we're in this mess. Bush gets a 100% complete pass, once again. He's never responsible for his own actions.

:eyes: :eyes: :eyes:

Man, we really have an uphill battle this November, if phone-it-in opinion-makers like David Broder keep churning out that kind of noxious scribe week after week. Unbelievable.

[Kiouni]

1. LOL

thats the funniest damn thing i have read all night...but suddenly i am saddened because it's real! ah shit.

[VolcanoJen]

2. The funniest line for me...

... is when he declares that the "independents party" is forming "on both sides of the aisle," but the only person from the "other" side of the aisle happens to be Joe Lieberman.

:eyes:

It's funny, but not in a ha-ha way. :-)

[Wetzelbill]

6. oh I always laugh my ass off at something or another

about Bush, politics etc.

Then all of a sudden I think, "WTF am I laughing for, it's my country getting effed up!" :)

[leveymg]

16. Here's more evidence of McCain-Lieberman '08, "United We Stand"

and that The Washington Post will do whatever it takes to prevent the Democratic Party from taking power again.

[VolcanoJen]

17. Exactly correct

And the essay is so incoherent, easily disputed and factually flawed, it's as if Broder phoned it in.

[EarthNeedsHope]

35. Progressive independents?

It seems like all he's doing is talking about an "independent" group that goes for a mythical "center" which doesn't exist in the rein of the far-right.

[liberaldemocrat7]

3. The fiscal exploiters of the GOP

These so called independents appear the Libertarian wing of the GOP.

Broder appears to create this as the only scenario for rejecting both extremes in America.

I do not accept it.

I also reject the GOP, the DLC and the communist party in the USA.

That leaves the liberal left advocating social and economic justice with a capitalist system and a democratic Republic political system as my mainstream.

[Leopolds Ghost]

19. What about the moderately libertarian populist left?

Take away the populists and the "liberal left" seems to be composed mostly of people who have already benefited from the "capitalist system" -- you can't abandon the working class the way Clinton abandoned the poor.

[liberaldemocrat7]

21. Libertarians appear on the right not the left.

Libertarians do not believe in using government to help the poor as a rule.

Liberals do.

Libertarian left does not make sense to me.

If a person who takes liberal positions on helping the poor and also supports authoritarian sexual morality issues that also appears a contradiction to me.

[JHB]

24. It makes more sense if you use a small "l" for "libertarian"

We tend to be looked upon as misfits by all sides :hi:

Mostly due to faulty assumptions of what we "should" believe.

Left libertarians believe in maximizing personal freedom for individuals (all of them, not just "number one"), against all sources of abusive power (be it governmental, corporate, or just ruthless individuals). Contrary to "big-L" Libertarian ideology, that requires collective support systems, and despite problems governemnts have been the most efficent at providing those systems.
Removing those supports only cedes power to those most ruthless in grasping it.

[liberaldemocrat7]

25. Sorry but that appears liberal to me.

Liberals in my view want to stop companies from abusing people. You call that libertarian I call that liberal.

When I hear libertarian it means to me that the person does not want any interference by government.

[Zodiak]

29. The difference between a libertarian leftie and...

pure liberalism is the rejection of authoritarianism from both sides of the aisle by the left libertarians. A libertarian liberal will oppose imposing more restrictions on smokers, hunters, parents, drivers, teachers etc just as vehemently as opposing the Patriot Act. A nanny state is just as odious as a police sate to a libertarian liberal.

Some also call the same liberals the "Populist left", but populists tend to have more religious overtones than libertarian liberals. Both, however, agree that no liberty can be granted to an economic slave, so both agree that capitalism must be regulated in such a way as to maximally benefit the most people, preferably all.

Also, the reason you associate libertarianism with the right is because the right has co-opted the term in yet another attempt at covering their asses and not appearing "partisan". Don't let their re-definition of the term cloud what it really means...and that is "for liberty". I would never call myself a Libertarian, a philosophy rooted in pure selfishness, imo. However, I hear a LOT of Bush supporters hiding behind that label, now, knowing that just a couple of years ago they were proud Republicans.

Of course, all of this is my own take on these labels. I tend to fall in between the libertarian left and the Populist left, myself.

Also, the reason that libertarin lefties feel like oddballs is because both parties are strongly authoritarian about certain personal issues and very liberal on economic ones (meaning they both want capitalism relatively unfettered). Libertarian lefties do not find very good representation from either party, but generally agree with some Democrats and practically zero Republicans.

[JHB]

30. There's substantial overlap...

...and my position might be considered simply a subset of liberal, or the underlying reasons why I'm a liberal. But it also clarifies why I differ from the (so-called) "liberal view" (as if there were only one) on some issues.

[Wetzelbill]

4. that guy should have retired about two decades ago nt

[sandnsea]

5. Aaaah, this is the new plan

I was wondering because I had heard talk of the "extremists" by a few pundits in the last couple of days. I knew it had to be part of some sort of plan. I wish the Greens had come up stronger on the left so we could take the middle and push the loons to the right once and for all. *sigh* I don't think we're ever going to get rid of these nutballs.

[Wetzelbill]

8. what gets me is

David Broder sits around with his journalist buddies, kiss each other's asses on Sunday shows, read each other's columns, go and cuddle and have fun at cocktail parties with other Beltway scrubs and then purport to speak for "Midwesterners." WTF does David Broder know about Midwesterners? He sure the hell isn't one and hasn't been for since the freakin' Civil War era. It's like when Howard Fineman said that Al Sharpton's speech at the '04 Dem Convention would actually turn off black voters. These guys are effing goofy.

[VolcanoJen]

10. That drives me insane, too!

Every time I hear guys like Chris Matthews wax about "Joe Beer Can, you know, just a family guy sitting around watching his football in the midwest, c'mon, that guy's gotta be loving this tough-talking President," it really makes me want to break something.

Chris Matthews, Howard Kurtz, Tim Russert, David Broder, Howard Fineman, Joe Klein... aaaah, the inner-circle, kool-kidz Washington elite, trying to tell America what Midwesterners must be thinking.

And then they gulp down another martini, chow on some cocktail weenies and congratulate each other for still having high-paying jobs telling Americans what politics are all about.

Edit to add: I'm going to wager that the last time "midwesterner like me" David Broder was an actual midwesterner was, well, during the Eisenhower Administration. :-) And it's pretty disingenuous, David, to announce that midwesterners were rankled by the "know-it-all arrogance" of Gore and Kerry from your golden perch at the snooty, elitist, inside-the-beltway Washington Post, don't you think?

:puke:

Signed,
VolcanoJen
Actual Midwesterner

[City Lights]

22. I LOVE your attitude, VolcanoJen!

No Surrender, another actual Midwesterner, says :yourock:

:hi:

[VolcanoJen]

31. Actual Midwesterners For America!!

We could start our own party. :-)

:hug:

[cybildisobedience]

28. agreed....

particularly when we know both Gore and Kerry got more votes (or, in Kerry's case, at least more voters trying to vote....)


And refresh my memory - wasn't Broder wasn't those D.C. insiders who got the vapors when the Clintons came to town -- you know, this was our town, and they came in and defiled it?

Where is his moral outrage after six years of Bush and the shame, destruction and hate he's rained down upon us?

[sandnsea]

11. Stupid or conspirators, take your pick

If I can see these Rovian plans flying at us all the way from hobunk nowhere on the west coast, these DC pundicts are either too stupid to have jobs or willing conspirators.

But to be honest, what really gets me is I've been pushing this strategy for Greens & Dems for two years. Wouldn't it be great if the two major parties were Greens & Dems and the Repubs were reduced to a pile of fire-breathing relics.

[Wetzelbill]

13. oh I hope that day will come

:)

I can't see how these people can be so dumb about things. Like take the Plame stuff. Here you have a CIA NOC getting outed by someone in an administration because they were mad at her husband for proving they lied about something that eventually led to a war. So then somehow the story becomes about her husband, and how he got the job where he learned what he learned. What is more important, how a uniquely qualified person got a job, or an act of treason? But we have to sit through fiasco after fiasco after fiasco, because the press corps is completely FUBAR.

[MisterP]

7. so it'll be the (Führeriffic) Unity Party vs. the Socialists?

hello 35% percent participation!

[hfojvt]

9. It would be nice if a dozen or so Republicans

did form an independence party that broke away from the New American Fascists. (GOP)

It is nice of him to call Bush lawless and reckless and say that he defied the Constitution repeatedly.

People might have thought he was one of those vituperative bloggers if he hadn't distanced himself from them. Very clever. Makes the charges harder to dismiss - Bush has been lawless and reckless and repeatedly defied the Constitution!

Plus many of us midwesterners never trusted Bush (those of us who knew what was going on) Gore won states like Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

[Bucky]

12. You only have to worry about David Broder if he sways opinions.

But he doesn't. He's risen to the top of the pundit game by writing well and saying only what people in power want to believe. He has status, but no influence.

[Swamp Rat]

14. Wtf does this turd know about Joe Sixpack?

Does this Broder really think he speaks for Midwesterners? What a tool...

I think this idiot is just trying to cover his ass... the elephants are jumping ship.

[Wetzelbill]

15. these clowns think they are so

brilliant and love the sound of their own rehashed bs so much that he probably actually believes he knows what people outside of his insulated little world think. Like David Broder is that important. You stop a Joe Sixpack on the street and they wouldn't even know who the hell David Broder is. Nor would they care.

[Leopolds Ghost]

18. Dean of Washington Press Corps Abandons Neutrality Embraces Dying Party

Calls Dem leaders "arrogant know it alls"... Developing at 11.

[HereSince1628]

20. Anyone who couldn't see Bush's failings in 2004 can't be trusted

to speak about personal observations. This is just plain fabrication.

[HughBeaumont]

33. Bush was a failure a YEAR into his presidency.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Bush_Gang/GWBush_FirstYear_MM.html

[sweetheart]

23. Who's that foul mouth bastard calling vituperative

Selling ignorance as some kind of grace, really this journalist should be embarassed.

[Supersedeas]

26. oh, Bush is a pleasant down to earth guy who was unduly influenced by

Cheney -- this is a qualification to be President.

Did Broder not detect any ARROGANCE from Bush in 2000 and 2004?

Earth to Planet Broder, "You are loosing gravitational pull."

[blm]

27. Gore & Kerry got more votes than any other candidate, so Broder HAS to lie

about them so he can peddle his middle party BULLSHIT for the corporatists who pay his enormous mortgage for him.

[VolcanoJen]

32. That's the thing about opinion makers that infuriates me so much.

Reading Broder's column, and not knowing any better, you'd think both Gore and Kerry got absolutely whalloped at the polls by fed-up, anti-elitist midwesterners.

:eyes:

[blm]

37. Instead they got more votes than any other candidates in history.

Did the RNC buy Broder stock in Diebold? He sure seems invested in pretending the voters didn't vote for Democrats.

[LSK]

34. is this guy 5 years old???

:shrug:

[LeftishBrit]

36. As a foreigner, I really need some explanation

What is happening?

Are they suggesting 'unity' in the sense that the parties should join together in a coalition? Surely when that happens, it's usually AFTER a close election (it could, I don't mean should, have been a solution to 2000, for example); and not before the election. To do so before the election seems incredibly anti-democratic - as though they're abolishing the election.

Or are they suggesting an independent centre party? Quite honestly, in most other democracies with independent centre parties, your Democrats would correspond roughly to such a party. (I'm not trying to be nasty or anti-Democrats. FWIW, I frequently vote for the UK's 'centre party', the Liberal Democrats.) But I find the idea that an even more centrist party is needed very strange indeed.

I am amazed when the right describe Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, or whoever is their current bogeyperson as 'far left' or 'looney left'. This may be deliberately echoing terms used in within-party disputes in the British Labour Party in the 1980s. I certainly remember the term 'looney left' from that time. Some of the politicians and activists really were a bit flakey; some merely dared to question some of the party orthodoxy, or were a bit rude about Thatcher. The But I am quite sure that no Democrat would begin to compare with them in leftism. Perhaps unfortunately - - but there it is. To misquote a former vice-presidential candidate, Nancy Pelosi is no Ken Livingstone (I am fairly sure). The fact that these rather moderate individuals are treated as far-leftists just seems to show how right-wing the current Republicans are.

If the liberal/moderate Republicans feel out-of-place in their party, wouldn't it be better for them to try to reclaim their party from the far-right than to form another party?

[VolcanoJen]

38. Your first suggestion was spot on

Broder isn't proposing a serious third party; he's suggesting that the center of both parties (he writes that but only cites Republicans) unite in a coalition of sorts, but before the election.

The cynical Yank in me knows that his suggestion pertains only to Republicans. In other words, build this false sense of unity, this phony implication that they're going to stand up to Bush, that they'll provide their own checks and balances.

That would steal the Democrats' message, wouldn't it? Pull the rug out right from under them. Castrate what is obviously, judging from the polls, their strongest argument.

Thing is, it's a phony bill of sale. They never intend to deliver what they promise.

Broder's column helps to propel the myth that the Republicans are ready to say no to Bush, so just give them two more years... two more years...

It's maddening.