Soulless demented fish-carcass David Broder has recently discovered why Obama is awful and will fail: “But Obama has made it even more explicit, regularly proclaiming his determination to rely on rational analysis, rather than narrow decisions, on everything from missile defense to Afghanistan — and all the big issues at home.” How calculating that Obama is. This is not the proper way to govern! What he should do instead of “rely[ing] on rational analysis” is take a poop and see which direction it spins, in the toilet. Counter-clockwise would tell him, “build insane untested missile-krusher dongle in Poland.” [Washington Post]

We had not read a column by David Broder, “The Duchess” of the Washington press corps, since at least 1943 (”Buy War Bonds, You Chuckleheads” was the topic at the time), but a tipster told us that it was funny today and yeah, it’s very funny today. It is just benign mumbling about basketball and vacations and his hometown with a few perfunctory Obama references for good measure. Yeah. MORE »

You must must must watch this video of “The Princess” of the Washington press corps, David Broder, walking around some small Pennsylvania town looking for friends. He knocks on so many doors, but so many people are at work. And so he just keeps on walkin’. Every now and then he meets a nice lady or gentleman. They humor him politely, as one would an old person asking questions about one’s politics. David Broder has literally no idea where he is. [Washington Post]

What we learned from today’s Radar profile of lunatic presidential candidate Mike Gravel: MORE »

David Broder today comes to a stunning realization: divisive presidents are more than willing to make “bold” and controversial decisions about all sorts of things, but when it comes to firing one of the powerful and ideologically like-minded sycophants they’ve surrounded themselves with, they suddenly, mysteriously chicken out! MORE »

* Phil Gailey, Marueen Dowd, Mark Shields, David Broder and Brian McGrory talk about The Best of Mary McGrory at Politics & Prose. Free at 7PM, followed by tequila shots and oil wrestling. [P&P]
* Working Assets co-founder Peter Barnes has a way with metaphor: “It’s time to ‘upgrade’ capitalism by reclaiming the commons. Barnes shows that the market, like a computer, is run by an operating system, one that inherently gives the ‘right of way’ to profit-maximizing corporations who redistribute their profits to only a sliver of the population.” Learn more at Busboys & Poets, where he’ll discuss his book Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons. Free at 6:30PM. [DC Independent Media Center]

• Glenn Greenwald goes long on the anti-Murtha movement, posts his letter to lawyer Mark Zaid. [Glenn Greenwald]
• More on Rumsfeld’s Senate Testimony, Think Progress commenter says: “Got an answer for everything. I work with a dude like this. It starts with a conversation about dogs and ends with a conversation about umbrellas…” [Think Progress]
• Self-proclaimed punky Josh Wolf remains in jail for refusing to turn over video footage of a protest. [Romensko]
• Ned Lamont apparently doesn’t find blackface jokes funny, plays dumb: “I don’t know anything about the blogs, I’m not responsible for those, I have no comment on ‘em…Independent blogs, I can’t say anything about it.” [Michelle Malkin]
• WP’s David Broder: “reflects the conventional wisdom of his clique back at them. That’s his audience. Once upon a time that clique had power and influence. They imagine they still do, but it’s fading, and not because of the rising power of blogofascism. It’s because the Bush administration doesn’t care what the Grand Old Men of Washington think. They’ve made that perfectly clear.” At least he’ll have a lot of drinking buddies when he’s put to pasture. [Eschaton]

Hey, it’s just place-saving text ’till they figure out if today’s column calling for a slow, deliberate, eventual, measured non-withdrawal from Iraq was written by Broder or Ignatius. MORE »

Above, the precise number of retired generals and Post columnists required to call for Donald Rumsfeld’s retirement before David Broder will explicitly agree.

It’s a Rumsfeldapalooza on the Post op-ed page today! David Broder, Dean of the Washington Press Corps, has Rummy in his sights and — with the help of a few solid weeks of established conservative voices already expressing the sentiment for him, and hot on the heels of similarly RADICAL op-ed furniture David Ignatius — takes him down!

The situation cries out for serious congressional oversight and examination; hearings are needed as soon as Congress returns. These charges have to be answered convincingly — or Rumsfeld has to go.

Yes! Hearings! Accountability! Charge-answering! Over-sight! Over-sight! Over-sight!

But the combined moderate reasonable center-lib power of the David’s is not enough for Jack Hiatt, the uber-moderate:

In our view Mr. Rumsfeld’s failures should have led to his departure long ago. But he should not be driven out by a revolt of generals, retired or not.

Yeah! Rumsfeld should’ve gone already! But not because of Generals! So if he’s fired, which he should be, it shouldn’t be because those guys criticized him, but because we criticized him for sorta the same stuff! But it should’ve happened before! Yeah!

Did Joe Biden win the nomination yet, or what?

Listen to the Brass [WP]
The General’s Revolr [WP]
Earlier: Also, Ignatius, Let Us Tell You the Story of Colin Powell

One of the nice things about being a Seasoned, Reasonable, Political Reporting Veteran is that after putting in your years of close proximity to the scum of the Earth and witnessing firsthand the various underhanded and often illegal methods by which the privileged seek to consolidate their power and humiliate their enemies, you get to start writing a Seasoned, Reasonable column in which you idealize that past whilst decrying the degraded state of the present discourse. It’s a neat party trick, and one handled especially well by David Broder today. MORE »

OK, so maybe we’ve been a little hard on the WaPo Style section’s handling of the wondrous sensorium that is summer. After all, we very nearly missed David Broder’s dispatch on the security fence surrounding his own summer getaway, which we are so very happy to report is named Beaver Island. (What, the guy couldn’t find it on Pay Per View?) Yet–wouldn’t you know it–the island’s hifalutin security measures proved unequal to a crisis that befell Broder and his 500 or so other cabin retreaters hoping to cross a channel from Lake Michigan via a drawbridge on the fritz:

An electrical surge in the municipal power plant had knocked out switches in the bridge controls, and no one knew how to repair them — until a Highway Department technician could drive up from Lansing. That meant that the 8:30 trip from Charlevoix didn’t leave until 1:15 in the afternoon. MORE »