‘Dean’ Broder smears Dems with vicious lie

February 6, 2007

The WaPo’s David Broder is frequently called the “dean” of the Washington media establishment. He’s moderate to a fault, tepid in his criticism, but influential enough to help reflect and shape the conventional wisdom.

With this in mind, it was disheartening to see Broder take a cheap and unnecessary shot at the Democratic Party in his column today.

Broder was reporting on the DNC winter meeting, held over the weekend in DC, at which the party’s many announced and likely presidential candidates tried to impress the party faithful. Broder gave a rundown of how the field of aspirants did, but added this observation:

One of the losers in the weekend oratorical marathon was retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military.

I expect these kinds of dishonest smears from Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly, but Broder is supposed to be credible and serious. Why take such a gratuitous shot at the entire Democratic Party? Why intentionally perpetuate a right-wing lie? Why libel a political party with an observation that’s the opposite of the truth?

There are two angles to Broder’s maliciousness — the facts about Clark’s reception at the meeting, and the broader myth Broder is inexplicably anxious to propagate.

I was not at the DNC winter meeting, but Oliver Willis was, and he described Broder’s description as “a boldfaced lie.”

I happened to be in attendance at the speech in question, just a stone’s throw away from General Clark when he gave it. What David Broder is saying here is an absolute lie. The crowd in attendance stood on their feet, clapped their hands loudly and strongly time and time again when speakers – including Gen. Clark – invoked the service and sacrifice of America’s fighting men and women.

In fact, in the very speech Broder cites as his reasoning for Democrats not supporting the military, Gen. Clark asked for a moment of silence (see the video here) to reflect on the sacrifices being made by the troops currently serving. The auditorium was silent, and many bowed their heads in prayer.

As for the broader point, how long will Dems have to put up with such transparent nonsense about the party not supporting the troops? How many war heroes — Kerry, Murtha, Webb, Cleland, etc. — have to become Democratic champions before Broder and his brethren give up on such ugly lies? How many more veterans have to come home from Iraq and Afghanistan, and then join the Fighting Dems, before this myth has been debunked to Broder’s satisfaction? How much more work do the IAVA and VoteVets.org need to do before the inside-the-beltway chattering class, who too often treat a concept like “Duty, Honor, Country” as a punch line, come to realize how embarrassingly wrong they are?

More to the point, how many more times do draft-dodging chickenhawk Republicans have to balk at real support for our troops before the Gang of 500 realize that there’s one pro-military party in his country, and it ain’t the GOP?

David Broder, if you’re reading, this one deserves a correction — and an apology. You may have never written an observation as shameful and misguided as this one.

More to the point, how many more times do draft-dodging chickenhawk Republicans have to balk at real support for our troops before the Gang of 500 realize that there’s one pro-military party in his country, and it ain’t the GOP?

That was my first thought exactly – uh, Bush (well, I guess he served), Cheney, Wolfowitz, (did Rumsfeld serve?) – this is the pro-military crowd? I’ll be interested to see if there is any Broder apology – he probably will say that he’s been in DC for a long time and he knows what the pulse of the party really is or some such BS.

  • Time stopped for David Broder at some point in the 1984 presidential campaign. Columnists never get fired for irrelevance, however.The problem isn’t his ramblings, it’s that we have a seat of government where the out of it are accorded reverence.

  • Broder and his ilk are fast becoming outdated. What affects voters are powerful messages from the youth.

    Case in point: I love the fact that votevets.org ran their powerful Superbowl ads in Minnesota, Maine and Virginia – I bet Coleman, Waner & Collins are now quivering in their boots for fear of losing thir jobs, and no amount of watered down resolutions will help them.

  • ‘Dean’ Broder, like so many in the media, has to type the scripts that follow the narrative. In this case, it is that Dems are anti-military. As such, they must have not be enthusiastic about Gen. Clark’s speech. That the facts are different doesn’t matter when you are writing novels.

    See Bob Somersby’s work at http://www.dailyhowler.com

  • Use the comments section at the end of Broder’s column to respond to his opinion.

    Also use the ombudsman.

  • Lets get one thing straight, the right wingers and neocons DO NOT support the military, they support miltarism. Big difference. When they question comes to send troops to die somewhere, the righties don’ t say yes, they say hell yes! But when it comes to military pay, veterans benefits, making sure the troop have enough armor or whether troops in theater should have an exemption from draconian pro-credit card company legislation, it’s the Dems who say hell yes and the f*ckers like Broder on the right who claim it’s some socialist agenda to take money away from their rich buddies.

    Piss off Broder! You’re another idiot who seems to make a prety good living from constantly being wrong and who is taking a job away from somebody who is right about things at least half the time. No wonder he’s pro-Bush: incompetence worships incompetence.

  • Yikes – is (#6,9) that scary or what – hard to believe we all belong to the same human “race”.

  • Yikes – is (#6,9) that scary or what – hard to believe we all belong to the same human “race”.

    We installed a new anti-spam filter to help with this, but the result is that the spam disappears after being marked. This, in turn, effects the numbering.

    In all, it’s a good program, but I mention this because, otherwise, Bonnie’s comment may appear odd.

  • A friend once told me about her mother’s telling her she would have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously and to succeed because she was a woman and she wasn’t white.

    I’ve heard the same kind of thing from other people relating what others have told them- apparently a lot of mothers tell their daughters the same thing.

    This war issue was an important issue and I’ve felt for a while now we should have known about it and gotten all over it.

  • Grumpy @5 – thanks. I’ll bet he was all for a ground invasion at the time. Cheney, of course, had other priorities.

    Petorado @11 – Lets get one thing straight, the right wingers and neocons DO NOT support the military, they support miltarism. Well said!! I promise to use and abuse this point among friends and family.

  • Bonnie – (the old) #6 and (the old) #9 got “moderated.” You know what the UFO’s do to their human prey?? It’s something like that…Trust me, they’ll think twice about posting their garbage here.

    Can we get the UFO’s to capture Bush and Cheney?

  • 6 & 9 what does your racist diatribe have to do with David Broder

    steve could you flag this racist please

  • Don’t forget lie-berman. He has never served. Or Condi-liar. Or any of the Kagan boys. Has Hadley served?

  • And it appears McConnell somehow managed to avoid serving in the vietnam conflict–from his website:

    “Born on February 20, 1942, and raised in south Louisville, McConnell graduated in 1964 with honors from the University of Louisville College of Arts and Sciences, where he served as student body president. In 1967, he graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he was elected president of the Student Bar Association. McConnell gained experience on Capitol Hill working as an intern for Senator John Sherman Cooper before serving as chief legislative assistant to Senator Marlow Cook and deputy assistant attorney general under President Gerald R. Ford.”

  • and it looks like the Leader of the minority party in the House, john boehner, also has not time spent in the military:

    “Born in Cincinnati in November 1949 as one of 12 brothers and sisters, John has lived in Southwest Ohio his entire life. He and his wife Debbie have been married for 33 years. They have two daughters – Lindsay and Tricia – and live in the northern Cincinnati suburb of West Chester. After graduating from Cincinnati’s Moeller High School in 1968, John earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Xavier University in Cincinnati in 1977.”

  • Hmmm, and the Minority Whip Trent Lottwas of prime fighting age for vietnam, but somehow he makes no mention of serving in the military:

    “When his family set down roots in the port city of Pascagoula, where his father was a pipefitter and his mother taught elementary grades, Trent Lott attended a public school that would later bear his name. He received his Bachelor of Science in Public Administration in 1963 and his Juris Doctorate in 1967 from the University of Mississippi in Oxford.”

  • Former majority leader of the house Hastert? Nope, no note of serving in the military, although he could also have served in vietnam:

    “Born on January 2, 1942, Hastert is a 1964 graduate of Wheaton (IL) College where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. He attended graduate school at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, where he earned a master’s degree in the philosophy of education in 1967.”

  • Hell not even the Gipper himself served:

    “On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born to Nelle and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. He attended high school in nearby Dixon and then worked his way through Eureka College. There, he studied economics and sociology, played on the football team, and acted in school plays. Upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer. A screen test in 1937 won him a contract in Hollywood. During the next two decades he appeared in 53 films.”

  • Apparently Hadley has not served and was cnveniently in college and law school during the bulk of the vietnam war:

    “His professional legal practice focused on business problems of U.S. and foreign corporations particularly as they involve international business, regulatory, and strategy issues. He received a B.A. degree from Cornell University in 1969, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity, the Cornell University Glee Club, and the Quill and Dagger society. He later received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale Law School.”

  • I’m really starting wonder when the tipping point will be reached–when people come to realize that the mainstream press is almost entirely detached from our national reality–and what will happen after that. I guess the Fox-driven polarization of the media will accelerate, with everyone just going deeper into their echo chambers of choice. Not good, though the ongoing incompetence/mendacity of people like Broder is hardly preferable.

  • What petorado said! (as usual)

    When Broder says “few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military“, he is simply tapping the rich vein that runs through wingnut hate media, the meme that “the hippies hate the troops“. Note to Broder: We hate the way the troops are (ab)used by rich bastards to screw over the poor people on this planet, not the troops themselves. I know, this concept is really complicated, but you’re an official beltway pundit, so maybe you can figure it out.

    But maybe not.

    Either way, screw you, Broder. I defy you to find more than a couple of Republicans who vote to actually support the troops by fully funding their health care and by giving our troops proper armor. You can’t.

  • “Dean” Broder reminds me of many academic deans I’ve known. With few exceptions, none of them ever seemed to contribute anything to the work of the institution. We used to joke that we could do the university a favor by requiring the Deans to hold their Deanery meetings in the various building around campus. Their combined hot air would drastically reduce the campus heating budget.

  • “Hell not even the Gipper himself served:

    “On February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan was born to Nelle and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. He attended high school in nearby Dixon and then worked his way through Eureka College. There, he studied economics and sociology, played on the football team, and acted in school plays. Upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer. A screen test in 1937 won him a contract in Hollywood. During the next two decades he appeared in 53 films.” ”

    YES… President Reagan did serve! He left the service, passed over for promotion twice, about the time he became a Republican.

    Here is the Wikpedia entry.

    “Reagan was commissioned as a reserve officer in the Army in 1935. In November 1941, Reagan was called up for combat duty but disqualified because of his astigmatism. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lieutenant Reagan was activated and assigned to the First Motion Picture Unit in the United States Army Air Forces, which made training and education films for the war effort. Reagan recalled in his first autobiography Where’s the Rest of Me that he witnessed inefficiencies in his Army department because bureaucrats wanted to protect their own jobs and budgets. That’s when his enthusiasm for government efforts began to wane and his enthusiasm for free markets – and competition – began to rise, he recalled. Reagan remained in Hollywood for the duration of the war”

  • In all, it’s a good program, but I mention this because, otherwise, Bonnie’s comment may appear odd

    Its clearly an excellent program as I never saw the offending comments. Thanks Mrs. Carpetbagger!

  • I am stunned, almost speechless. In one obscenely offensive sentence, Mr. Broder manages to libel General Wesley Clark, a seriously wounded war hero and the most decorated American soldier since Eisenhower, the Democrats in attendance, who have demanded proper veterans’ benefits, body armor and just, properly-designed and properly-supported missions for our troops, as well as Democrats nationwide, including countless wounded veterans and the loved ones of countless soldiers who never returned.

    I’d like to think his words will have an unintentionally positive effect, helping in making General Clark into President Clark, which would indeed be a gift to Democrats, Independents, and even Republicans nationwide.

  • After graduating from Cincinnati’s Moeller High School in 1968, John earned a bachelor’s degree in business from Xavier University in Cincinnati in 1977.”

    It took Boner nine years to get a BS in business? WTF?

  • CB, thanks for pointing the lie out. I didn’t even think about it when I read it today.

    What is it with this Broder asshole anyway?

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