P.S. How the fuck did you get your job, Mr. Broder?

Best Wishes!

Pundits are paid to have opinions about and on behalf of the public -- to take the actual opinion of real non-pundit-Americans into account would be to exceed their God-given mandate as pundits.

Exactly! There's nothing more despicable than somebody barging into your home on a Sunday morning to tell you lies!!

... OK maybe there are a few things more despicable than that.

Be sure to let us know if he replies!

Thanks, Jon.

Haven't you ever heard of the memory hole? I've already forgotten how we got into, uh, Iraq. (I'm practicing up for summer of '06 when Our Leader, every GOP in Congress, and of course our Hackatron friends on TV will tell us that there is no Iraq, just a shining vista of more tax cuts for our betters.)

History is bunk. Except when it makes for good visuals.

Broder caught a dose of Woodarditis.

Right! And Miller caught a case of Hearstrophy.

Haven't you ever heard of the memory hole?

Exactly. The public's moved past that. We've always been at war with Iraq.

Maybe you'll get a reply when I get replies to my Broder letters--i.e., when Hell freezes over.

Here are my letters to Broder--not as brief or amusing but big in the rage department. Note the dates. Nothing has changed. Broder is the dean of Washington sludge buckets. They'll never change and should merely be shitcanned. Let them end their worthless lives covering the police blotter for the East Podunk Community Weekly.
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April 1, 2005

Dear Mr. Broder:

Has the air up there on Olympus grown so thin that you are deprived of memory and reason? I read your column in today's WaPo and, as St. Ronnie would say, "There you go again!"

While it is gratifying to read that you "feel a sense of shame and embarrassment" at the media's abysmal performance in reporting this presidential campaign, I also note that nowhere do you descend from your throne as "dean" of Washington correspondents to take personal responsibility for acting, all too often, as just another conduit of administration lies and spin to your defenseless readership. [As one reminder, I append my last letter to you decrying your shameless laziness in reporting and analysis of the administration's pre-9/11 anti-terrorism efforts.]

Your keen analysis of today's problem leads you to classic buck-passing. According to you, it is not those "senior journalists," yourself included, who are to blame for their willful blindness, but their news organizations whose standards have been regrettably "compromised," all due to a "loss of confidence." Well, who is doing the compromising, if not those same senior journalists, yourself included?

It is not good enough to now point the finger at "stars imported from the political world" for subverting your vaunted culture and values. It is telling that your complaint seems to be that these "stars" were offered the "most prestigious and visible jobs"--and presumably the most lucrative. Can that be the reason why all those old pros of the newsroom, complete with fedoras and ink-stained fingernails, have parked their professionalism in the crapper and rushed to join the administration's Hallelujah Chorus?

The fact is that it is the old pros like yourself who have muzzled themselves regarding the degradation of our national news organizations. You still do not name names. You still speak in generalities. You still shrink from speaking truth to power. You still adopt the Olympian attitude that it's all beneath you. What is beneath you is a crumbling mountain of lost credibility and "senior journalists," yourself included, have yourselves to blame. While you are still in a position to be heard, to perhaps make a difference, you have almost all chosen to be enablers for the liars, spinners and vicious poseurs who dominate our political discourse today.
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April 10, 2004

Dear Mr. Broder:

I am continually amazed at the Washington pundit's desire to give the Bush administration a pass by glossing over or even omitting inconvenient facts that would disturb the deep pond of received wisdom.

In your fourth graph, you say the Bush team "inherited a faltering anti-terrorism campaign" from the Clinton administration. Please explain how the Clinton team's campaign was faltering. It had Dick Clarke's plan ready to present to the incoming administration. It had taken a more wide-ranging series of actions and preparations than either Reagan or Bush I. It had the full attention and support of the president and his highest cabinet officials. I would say the "faltering" commenced on Jan. 20, 2001.

You describe Rice as "at her most impressive" as she proceeded to spin, obfuscate, distort, lie and run out the clock with a mass of verbiage to describe precious little action. The only impressive thing about her performance was that she never managed to run out of hot air.

That same graph goes on to say that "for the sake of continuity in day-to-day operations, it carried over" the Clinton counterterrorism team. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say they had no one on the Bush team as qualified or experienced? Wouldn't it be more complete to add that they downgraded the importance of counterterrorism planning by downgrading Clarke and his team and by cutting budgets for counterterrorism in the FBI?

Paragraph four is a virtual goldmine for ratification of White House spin and talking points. You close it by writing that the administration "launched its own structured effort to devise a more aggressive long-term strategy" against al Qaeda. Isn't it true that the effort wasn't precisely "launched" as it was shelved, put on the back burner, and given lip service rather than action? Isn't it also true that the "aggressive long-term strategy" that finally emerged, just days before the attacks, hardly differed in any significant way from the plan that was handed to Condi Rice and Vice President Cheney by Dick Clarke just weeks after they took power?

Perhaps the title of your piece should be more properly titled "Incurious Broder." Aren't you just a little embarrassed that you enjoy the invaluable opportunity to opine on some of the most important editorial pages in the nation, and you squander it to regurgitate White House propaganda and spin? When are you and your journalistic brethren going to understand that your ethical duty to the public is to report the whole truth, however unpleasant for those in power and disruptive to the cozy arrangements of access?