Steve are you auditioning for a job as David Broder's counter point. You sure spend a lot of time talking about Dean Broder's latest proof of how he is suffering the ravages of senility.

You really ought to start your Broder posts with "David, you ignorant slut." That would make them more entertaining.

Of course the professional media elite are going to agree with Lindsey Graham. That is who they are paid to agree with and what to believe.

As to the latest Broder poppycock, "just a senile old man soiling himself. Nothing to see. Move along. Avert your eyes. Give the old gentlemen his dignity."

Another tell. In both Broder's piece and the Post's new piece talking about Rahm and the Mayor of Chicago - Rahm was labeled Rahm, the architect of the Democtratic take-over of the House in 2006. In both places just stated as a fact that it was Rahm who did it. The Dean had a lot to do with it - and arguably a heck of a lot more to do with it - is now officially forgotten.

It's clear as day that Rahm's been Broder's and other source for a long time - which is why he's worshipped by the pundits. Completely ignoring that Obama ran a great campaign, the hired Rahm - and since then has seen his popularity plummet.

Third - very funny that they assume Rahm would win the mayor's race. Don't think some local pol wants that job? And that maybe a few activists would love to beat the guy? And of course maybe wait until some polls show his shot?

Broder's middle is the same world where the New York Times states that Obama's unwillingness to cave totally to Republican views on the Bush tax cuts is characterized as not compromising.

I have it on inside information that Broeder will have a column next week discussing the fact that the repukes should move to the middle - somewhere between Sam Brownback and Sharon Engle!

^^Yeah, I was going to say, the middle of what exactly? "Conservatives" are such a joke..

Broder doesn't let facts get in the way of a good narrative. Also, it's extremely irritating to see good liberal programs labeled conservatives. Beltway lazythink conservative = good, liberal = bad.

Yes, the middle of what?
Conservatism vs Tea Bagism?

Pundits, like preachers, have to come up with a weekly sermon. And their Good Books only offers so many topics to draw upon.

-perhaps that is why both churches and newspapers are experiencing dwindling attendance. . .

I am waiting for Broder to notice that his cherished bi-partisanship doesn't even exist within the Republican Party itself, where Broder and the establishment he represents may be the last people to figure out that the GOP is engaged in a great civil war testing whether this party, or any party, so conceived and dedicated can long endure.

When the GOP is not kicking out long-time incumbents in favor of untested Tea Party insurrectionaries, the losers in these primaries are refusing to bury the hatchet and let bygones be bygones. These unobserved conventions were an oddity first noticed by Richard Hofstadter, who wrote about them in 1964 as he watched the Republicans who had nominated Goldwater refuse to extend the customary courtesies to the losing Rockefeller factions -- booing them off the floor instead -- an unpardonable breach of etiquette which led Hofstadter to conclude that the GOP was no longer a political party but was instead a genuine political movement of the radical right for whom anything short of absolute victory was unthinkable.

Broder and his kin may be the only ones who haven't noticed that the GOP is staging a repeat of that 1964 experience and is no longer the party they remember. Consequently, all this talk about right, center and left has no meaning because all of the old measuring sticks are broken. "Right" no longer means "conservative" since the right is now revolutionary. So all of this talk about a "radical" Obama is coming from people who have become thoroughly radicalized themselves.

The middle of the road is where the economy gets run over over and over.

I guess I have a slightly different take. What I find pathetic about the Broder column is that he doesn't even see what Obama is trying to do with these initiatives. Surely, Obama doesn't see them as a cure-all for the economy. He in all likelihood sees them as political tactics to try and limit the damage this November -- it's an attempt to keep the House and Senate by making the Republicans seem both out-of-touch (keeping tax cuts for the wealthiest) and apopectically negative (will vote against tax cuts just to spite Obama). I think it's a worthwhile tactic, but it's a political tactic nonetheless.

The so-called "center" of political discourse in this country has moved so far to the right that Richard Nixon (created the EPA; called for a carbon tax; proposed a much more robust health care plan than what just got passed) would be labeled a wild-eyed Socialist.

This is what happens when you use the once-proud word "conservative" to described looney-tunes mouth-breathers like Boehner, DeMint and their ilk. There's not much that psychos like Sharron Angle, Dan Maes and Joe Miller can do to appear a wacko as they are, with everyone pretending that Boehner represents a valid point of view.

Even Political Animal uses the word "conservative" to describe Boehner. This is foolish. He's a far-right ideologue, no more conservative than a rabid wolverine.

@ Samuel Knight:
as a long-time resident of chicago, i can tell you two things: 1)just about EVERY local pol with a pulse (and some without) wants and has been mentioned locally for daley's job, and 2) outside the national and local chattering classes, i can see absolutely no base of support (or even interest in) for rahm in the city.

wasn't he supposed to move right after scott brown won?

If there's one thing that instantly flags a hack, it is when they start talking about what "the American people" want, instead of what they themselves want, or what their party leadership says it wants. Boehner does it all the time, too. It's a bogus argument in the form of "appeal to authority" with a nice dollop of faux patriotism on top. It can always be rephrased as: "I don't know squat, but you wouldn't spit on the flat, would you?"

If there's one thing that instantly flags a hack, it is when they start talking about what "the American people" want, instead of what they themselves want, or what their party leadership says it wants. Boehner does it all the time, too. It's a bogus argument in the form of "appeal to authority" with a nice dollop of faux patriotism on top. It can always be rephrased as: "I don't know squat, but you wouldn't spit on the flat, would you?"

Wasn't he supposed to move right after scott brown won?

Pick any political event of the last thirty years and you can probably find a Broder column predicting or suggesting that one or more Democrats need to to move to the right. It's what David Broder does. It's what the Beltway does.

"a comically right-wing GOP that's not only refused to meet him half-way on literally anything, but at times seems intent on undermining national progress purely for partisan gain."

Now if we could only get Democrats to campaign on on this!

Unfortunately, most of them seem to agree with Broder and the GOP.

"...it's what led to a more moderate health care reform bill..."

If a bill of, by and for the insurance industry was moderate, what would a conservative bill have mandated -- public flogging of the sick, pour encourager les autres?

Oops, shouldn't have given them ideas.