Similarly, Broder joined in the deification of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, asserting that Gates is "incapable of dissembling" -- when any student of Gates's history could tell you that Gates has been a master of deception and spin since his early days at the CIA. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Secret World of Robert Gates."]
Steering to the Center
Broder also could be counted on endlessly to urge Democrats to "steer to the center," rather than fight for principles. That was the advice that Broder handed down to President Barack Obama in 2009, urging him to accommodate Republicans on issues such as health care and economic reforms.
Broder always appeared clueless about the true nature of the Republicans and the Right, that they had no intention of making meaningful compromises. If journalism relates to assessing reality as it is -- not as you wish it to be -- then Broder was a very bad journalist.
Yet, that is surely not the conclusion that Broder's many admirers in the mainstream press will take away. In a lead editorial on March 10, the Washington Post wrote:
"Mr. Broder was often called 'the Dean,' a position that is now likely to go unfilled in the Washington press corps. His detractors used the term sarcastically; they came mostly from the political left and found him much too moderate.
"In this, he was probably reflecting not just his temperamental aversion to ideology but what he'd seen of the country over the years - a country whose governing institutions he genuinely loved and worried about.
"But he could thunder at times, and when he did, it counted all the more in public opinion. Mr. Broder had credibility of a kind that is rare today in the world of political discourse."
The hard truth, however, is that Broder did possess an ideology, one of blind "centrism," a viewpoint that failed to detect the corruption that had penetrated to the heart of the Establishment and that was eating away at his beloved governing institutions.
When Broder thundered, it was almost always at those who pointed out this corruption and who understood that simply papering over the rot wouldn't save the Republic.
It was this failure to appreciate the need for honesty -- even when it upsets the powerful -- that stands, sadly, as Broder's real epitaph. The same failure applies to the Washington press corps, which called Broder its "Dean."
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