I'll make this short and simple -- since the message itself is short and simple. David Broder needs to shape up (pun intended).
His a.m. column bemoans a "new low" in political advertising and that the Corzine campaign has "sunk to new depths" given the implication of a Corzine campaign playing off the girth of one Christopher Christie (R). "I thought we had reached a nadir" the prevous month, bemoans David.
Now, I am no high-horse political columnist. And there are days when I fear my memory is about as long as the shortest train leaving any rail station in America. But doesn't it strike anyone else as absolutely amazing -- incredible -- that it did not occur to either Broder or his editors that such a tactic was hardly new? Has Broder gone so senile or forgetful that he's completely forgotten the '80s GOP campaign against Democrats that not-so subtlely referenced Tip O'Neill as a symbol for Democratic governance? Or is he simply now just your average GOP hack masquerading as a journalist.
Here's but one person's recollection -- one such example -- of which I am talking about:
In 1980 lost his bid for reelection to Ronald Reagan and the Republicans took control of the Senate. Overnight and by default, O'Neill became the most prominent Democrat in the country. Reaganites were thrilled: They had run a commercial all through the election year that showed a fat, white-haired, cigar-chomping O'Neill look-alike driving a big car and running out of gas. Democrats worried that the Republicans would complete their electoral realignment by winning the House of Representatives in the midterm elections of 1982. Reagan already had a governing majority in the House: 190 Republicans plus 40 members of the southern-dominated Democratic Conservative Forum, the so-called boll weevils.
When I see such obvious and ridiculous errors in a once-great newspaper like the Washington Post, it is really hard to take statements like the one thrown out here -- "I have no rooting interest in the New Jersey race" -- with any seriousness at all.
Broder references an "Ad Hoc Committee of Journalistic Ethics Enforcers" that (apparently) has beknighted him with the task "to condemn this journalistic tactic." To which all I can say is -- David, you better start typing fast for the correction page of tomorrow's Post. Either that, or simply do what has become obvious that you must do: retire -- or make no bones about your partisanship leanings. Somehow, I'm guess the latter won't get you removed off the pages of the Washington Post; but most assuredly, the former should get you to do the right thing and step down.