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RIP, David Broder

by: JimC

Wed Mar 09, 2011 at 18:48:11 PM EST
Well, somebody should say it.
JimC :: RIP, David Broder
Tags: , (All Tags)
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RIP, David Broder | 6 comments
Before this drops out of sight - (4.00 / 1)
In the 1960s and 1970s Broder was a voice in the wilderness - writing about politics as something that affects people's lives, conducted by real people, while all the other columnists were writing horse-race stuff. He paid more attention to what was going on in state government than his peers, too.

I think three things happened: he improved the standards of the genre, so that policy coverage rather that just gossip became more common; we all became Villagers everywhere, familiar with the beltway conventional wisdom; and he became more enmeshed in the Village over time.

Rest in peace.

Thanks elwood (0.00 / 0)
I've been mildly shocked at how little has been said since Broder's passing. I wouldn't expect everyone to comment, but my count so far is you and me. His columns have been such a target over the years -- usually for good reason, but still -- that I just think we owe him a little epitaph. Thank you.

[ Parent ]
I think it's really been hard (4.00 / 2)
to remember what Elwood talks about above -- Broder became such a symbol of the Villager problem in his later years. He's the guy that said about the Lewinsky scandal and Clinton that "He came in here and trashed the place, and it's not his place." -- which is Villager-ism in a nutshell.

The real problem for me is I was not involved in politics before Broder made his transition to the protector of village civility -- so it's hard for me to see past that stuff. I'm stuck writing a eulogy for a guy that I know must have been deep and thoughtful at some point, but with whom my experience has largely been negative.

Outside of the civility stuff, in the area I have a professional interest in, education, I can think of few columnists who have done more outright damage to educational policy than Broder. Every time he would write a column on education I'd find I'd have to clean up his mess at work for weeks. He was in that area a great purveyor of conservative memes, and he served to legitimize them in really unhelpful ways.

But you're right Jim, silence is even less respectful of the dead than criticism. So here you go.


[ Parent ]
Yeah, well. (0.00 / 0)
his cuneiforms ROCKED!
[ Parent ]
Thanks Mike (4.00 / 1)
I'm not sure if you're being cheeky in this line; I think not.

But you're right Jim, silence is even less respectful of the dead than criticism.

But I agree with it. Even if Broder wasn't a singular target, which he clearly was (and often deserved it), the death of "the dean of the Washington press corps" should merit mention on political sites, in my view. (For that matter, the commercial media has been pretty quiet about it too.)

And for the record I wasn't singling out BH. There's been nothing on Blue Mass, nothing on Eschaton, and even nothing on TPM. Puzzling.

But as Voltaire said, to the living one owes respect. To the dead one only owes the truth.

[ Parent ]
No wasn't being cheeky at all (4.00 / 1)
And that Voltaire line sums it up exactly.


[ Parent ]
RIP, David Broder | 6 comments

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