In all sincerity, I would like nothing more than to stop highlighting the problems with David Broder’s WaPo columns. At this point, I’m tempted to believe that he’s intentionally writing nonsense for the sole purpose of generating annoyed responses from progressive bloggers.
But Broder is the “dean” of the DC media establishment, and his columns are influential in shaping the broader political conventional wisdom, so when he’s very wrong — as he is again today — it’s probably worth taking the time to set the record straight.
[Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] may be playing with fire [on the immigration bill]. A poll that Andy Kohut completed for the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press four days before the Senate fiasco on the immigration bill found a striking increase in disapproval of Democratic congressional leaders. In January, 39 percent approved of them and 34 percent disapproved. In early June, disapproval topped approval, 49 percent to 34 percent. Among independents, the disapproval score was 58 percent to 26 percent.
Reid may think that Bush will suffer if immigration reform is killed. But the public is likely to put the blame where it principally belongs — on the leader of the party that runs the Senate.
Broder appears to have the broader dynamic wrong in several different ways.
First, Broder, whose bizarre attacks on Reid are not new, blames the Senate Democratic leadership for the failure of the immigration bill. It’s a debatable point, but holding Reid directly responsible for the breakdown, without the necessary context, is misleading. As Kevin Drum recently explained, “Look at the numbers. This was a bipartisan bill sponsored by Ted Kennedy and John McCain and supported by George Bush. Democrats voted 37-11 in favor of moving forward to a final vote. Republicans voted 38-7 against it. In the end, the Democratic leadership delivered nearly 80% of its votes. Bush couldn’t even get 20% of his party to go along.”
Broder, who concedes in his column that he is “no fan of Sen. Reid,” prefers to hold Dems responsible. The evidence shows otherwise.
But the notion that Dems are taking a hit in the polls because of immigration is just silly.
Broder notes that Dems were more popular earlier in the year, and less popular now. Elsewhere in the column, he argues that Senate Dems “spent most of the past five months battling futilely with President Bush over a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq.”
I think you see where I’m going with this.
Broder suggests Dems are suffering politically because Republicans rejected the immigration bill. I suspect the drop in the polls has a lot more to do with Dems backing down from a fight with Bush over war funding. Indeed, Less than a week ago, a national WaPo/ABC poll, conducted shortly after Congress gave Bush the war-spending bill he wanted, showed congressional Dems’ popularity taking a sharp hit. In April, when Dems passed a withdrawal timeline, 54% of Americans approved of their job performance, while 44% disapproved. Almost immediately after Dems capitulated and passed war funding without restrictions, those numbers reversed, 44% approve, 49% disapprove.
Indeed, by arguing that Dems were wasting time fighting the White House over Iraq spending, Broder appears to have this backwards, too. The public, by all appearances, wanted Dems to keep up the fight with Bush, and then were dissatisfied when they pulled back.
So, to review, Broder thinks it’s Harry Reid’s fault the immigration bill died (it’s not), the public is turning on Dems over immigration (they’re not), and Dems were wrong to fight Bush over funding the war (they weren’t).
I can’t wait to see what the dean will come up with next.