David Broder has written that Harry Reid should abdicate the Senate
Majority Leader's position.
I think this event deserves a discussion of the media
context.
Let me start simply this way. David Broder is the
"unchallenged dean" of the Washington commentariat. No op-ed
columnist has enjoyed the respect and prestige David Broder has. (I
don't need to go further to tell you that Broder is nobody's
conservative.)
This is the man who has called for the resignation of one Harry
Reid.
Once upon a time, this Broder pronouncement might well have
created a tidal wave. Harry Reid might have been halfway out the
door by the afternoon of the Broder column's publication. In short,
Harry Reid might have been given the full Trent Lott treatment on a
matter much more richly deserving it.
The case is easy to make and
Broder made it. Reid conducts himself in an aggressively
boorish manner. In an apparently desperate bid to be invited to the
next Yearly Kos meeting, he recently yelped that "The war is lost,"
despite the fact that we have poured a rather large amount of blood
and treasure into Iraq, the fact that the United States is never
outgunned, but only loses its nerve, and the fact that there are
several million Iraqis hoping we don't pull a cute Vietnam-style
see ya later (and quite a few terrorists who hope we do). Reid
badly undermined us with both enemies and allies.
Broder said all this (just a little more nicely than me, but not
much) and Pejman and I have to share the news. It did not generate
its own massive press explosion. I'm not sure Broder's announcement
will mean more than
Mark Levin's a few days ago. To a person who remembers life
before the blogosphere, that's a little surprising.
(Personally, I pray the Democrats fall to common sense and send
Reid to the back benches. David Broder is not the enemy of the
Democrat party. He probably lifted a toast on that unhappy November
night last year. They should heed his advice.)
But guys like David Broder don't carry the influence they once
did. I can think of no position in the established media that has
been more thoroughly damaged by the internet than the once small
ranks of op-ed columnists. Not so long ago, there were just a
handful of political column writers who could hope to influence
national opinion. In the age of the internet, the ranks of
well-educated opiners with something to say are legion and they are
constantly cranking out content. The democratization of discourse
is in effect.
Broder's column may just sink beneath the waves of the opinion
ocean. It's too bad. Because this time (no, it's not the only time)
the dean is right.
topics:
Harry Reid, Iraq
