David Broder, the “Dean” of  the Washington Press Corps, died last week at the age of 81, complications from diabetes.  Everyone from Newt Gingrich to President Obama praised him, as even handed, hard working, non-ideological and in touch with regular folks.  I won’t link to such praise, as it is to be found everywhere.  What isn’t to be found easily is a look at what this praise reveals about the Washington Press Corps, the understanding of “ideological,” and “even handed.”

Here is some of his even-handed advice to the President:

With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran’s ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.

I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history.”

As the headline that comments on this reads: What Was David Broder Smoking?

Eric Alterman also comments on this Broder advice, as well as showing the similarity of the idea to suggestions by both Elliot Abrams, Daniel Pipes and Sarah Palin, who Broder seemed to have a real fondness for.

Leave aside the many questionable economic assumptions that Mr. Broder blithely asserts but remain highly contested in the real world of economic debate. The Wonk Room’s Matt Duss traces the genesis of this particular argument here, from Bush National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams responding to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg: “The Obama who had struck Iran and destroyed its nuclear program would be a far stronger candidate, and perhaps an unbeatable one.”

Duss notes that Sarah Palin appeared to like the idea as well. He imagines she heard it from the anti-Arab academic and neoconservative activist Daniel Pipes, who five days earlier had argued that “a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama’s feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene.”

It would not be entirely surprising if Broder came across the idea on the basis of Palin’s suggestion. He has long been a fan of the ex-Alaska governor. In a column called “Sarah Palin displays her pitch-perfect populism,” Broder could barely contain his enthusiasm for this “public figure at the top of her game—a politician who knows who she is and how to sell herself.”

Broder grew so impatient waiting for Obama to decide whether to continue the Afghan invasion, for how long and in what manner that he exploded that it was an  “urgent necessity … to make a decision—whether or not it is right.”

In column after column he praised President Bush, and thought that some rhetorical tricks at at press conference would turn around American’s falling opinion of him.

And it didn’t all begin recently, though his argument that no investigation should be undertaken of the Bush Administration’s promotion of torture is exceptionally troubling.

Sadly, Broder’s decision to avert his eyes from the distasteful and potentially criminal actions of his government is not exceptional; it’s how he defines his job. Forty years ago he scolded those in the Democratic Party who challenged Lyndon Johnson’s lies about Vietnam as “degrading…to those involved.” Twenty years ago he attacked independent counsel Lawrence Walsh’s investigation into criminal wrongdoing in the Iran/Contra scandal. (Reagan had mused that he would likely be impeached should his extraconstitutional actions ever be discovered.) Broder supported Republican efforts to impeach Bill Clinton, whose behavior he deemed “worse” than Richard Nixon’s police-state tactics during Watergate because Nixon’s actions, “however neurotic and criminal, were motivated and connected to the exercise of presidential power.” There is a pattern here, obviously. When a president abuses his constitutional warmaking powers, he can depend on Broder not only to defend his crimes but to attack those who would hold him accountable. This, in the eyes of perhaps the most honored and admired journalist today, is the proper function of the press in a democracy.

Let’s see, Broder also thought, nay, pushed, the idea that Social Security was a big drag on the nation’s economy and needed to be reformed, which discussion was delayed by mean old Nancy Pelosi.

Neither could he compare the small numbers of today’s

Broder is perhaps most famous lately calling for comity and bibartisanship in Congress, regardless of where the agreements actually came down.  If you are screaming and I am yelling really loud, meeting in the center doesn’t make things very quiet.  When he finally got around to noticing that bad-behavior wasn’t falling to one side or the other with the regularity of a coin toss, who did he call on to repair things in the GOP? None other than John S. McCain!

For a good description of High Broderism go to Jay Rosen’s piece on his site, PressThink.org on June 10, 2010.

There’s much more, of course.  Look, it doesn’t matter so much that Broder had all these views.  What matters is that so many believed they were the mark of a good, old fashioned and much needed rationality and disintrestedness.  Thanks for the Iraq war, David.

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