Ask Not What Obama Can Do For the Country, but 'What The GOP Can Do For Obama'

At least that’s what the wise man of the Washington Post, David Broder, has asked.

David Broder, sage of the center, has long (very long) been the quintessential middle of the roader, Mr. Moderate, the Dean of Conventional Wisdom, David Gergen without the unctuous smarm. But now that the Democrats under Obama have veered sharply left, Broder’s position just to the right of them no longer seems so moderate, or sensible.

Broder mentions with evident approval that “there’s more talk these days in White House circles about measures that might attract bipartisan support” and quotes a White House “insider” (it takes one to know one) who says, “If you asked the president what he would really like for Christmas, it would be a smart loyal opposition.” Then comes the moderate, sensible, centrist Broderism:

Of course, Obama’s definition of what would constitute wise, farsighted Republican policy may bear no resemblance to what John Boehner or Mitch McConnell, the GOP leaders in Congress, have in mind. But he’s probably not expecting the kind of relationship that Lyndon Johnson enjoyed with Everett Dirksen, the Senate Republican leader who provided the votes that allowed passage of the great civil rights statutes of the 1960s.

Obama would be well pleased if he could have someone resembling Bob Dole or Howard Baker, Republican Senate leaders who mostly opposed Democratic presidents but made common cause with them on certain national and international issues.

Note the implicit — or perhaps it is so evident as to be explicit — criticism of current Republican leaders (and by implication, their followers) for being narrowly partisan political pygmies, dwarfed by the towering bipartisanship of now long departed and much lamented responsible leaders of old such as Dirksen, Dole, and Baker.

The assumption here, of course — and again, it is so evident as to be more of an overt argument than an assumption — is that Obama’s policies are as deserving of bipartisan support as were the Democratic polices that Dirksen, Dole, and Baker so magnanimously supported. Democrats and their media mouthpieces obviously believe that to be the case, but reasonable people can disagree about that.

The trouble with Broder and those like him is that he clearly doesn’t believe a refusal to go along with Obama, at least to some degree, is reasonable. In his opinion, bipartisanship should prevail, no matter what policies the majority party attempts to impose and no matter how unpopular those policies may be with ordinary voters.

Another trouble resulting from the necessity to veer left to stay “moderate,” at least for Broder, is that the distance from the Republicans produces not only contempt but, increasingly, unfamiliarity and downright factual obtuseness. For example (and it is a good one), Broder writes that he doubts the coming December report of the bipartisan commission on debt and deficits will receive enough Republican support for a consensus. “But,” and here is the full-throated Broderism:

… at minimum, its majority report is expected to point to a plausible formula for budgetary discipline and, with pressure from the president, force congressional Republicans to come up with their own plan — not just say no.

Exactly who “expects” the majority report to be “plausible”? Not the Republicans who oppose it, but there they will no doubt go again, Broder implicitly argues, rejecting even the “plausible” in favor of the narrowly partisan, “just say no” approach that defines them (to Broder et al.) today.

That all Republicans do is “just say no” is, of course, nothing more than pure Democratic partisanship, something Broder obliviously repeats as though he’s simply reporting the obvious. It is especially odd for him to repeat the Democratic “just say no” slander, since he is very much aware that it is the Democrats in Congress who have just said no to creating a budget.

In his July 8 column, for example, Broder indicates that he is even aware of Rep. Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, since he quotes him on the Democratic failure:

This is not a budget. The measure fails to meet the most basic, commonly understood objectives of any budget. It does not set congressional priorities; it does not align overall spending, tax, deficit and debt levels; and it does nothing to address the runaway spending of federal entitlement programs.

Chances are that Broder is even familiar with Rep. Ryan’s comprehensive “road map” plan for eliminating the deficit, dramatically reducing the cost of health care, etc. (if for no other reason than that he no doubt reads Politico, which just discussed a respectful if skeptical hearing Ryan’s plan received at Brookings), but if all one knew of today’s Republicans came from Broder’s column on What the GOP can do for Obama, one would view them, as Broder obviously does, as narrow-minded political grinches putting their own partisan interests above the nation’s and doing nothing but just saying no.

My point here is not that Broder is wrong (although I think he is), but that because his view has become so partisan and one-sided his centrist, moderate platform has crumbled under his feet, making him just one more opinionated opinion journalist, albeit an unwitting one. He might not have been a member of JournoList, but based on this column he might as well have been.