The Dean of the Press Corps Puts All of Washington On Double Secret Probation
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 .
The hed is "When Partisan Venom Didn't Rule," which made us a little curious as to when you could ever say that about the American political scene. After ruling out Reconstruction, the McCarthy era, the Spanish-American War, and that period in which Aaron Burr was organizing a violent coup d'etat, we decided that Broder must mean the Coolidge Administration.
But, uh, then we saw the picture of Reagan. You remember him, right? The one the Senate was constantly investigating while twelve of his appointees were convicted of crimes? The one who nominated that Bork guy to the Supreme Court? Because those years truly were a second Era of Good Feelings, no?
The Dean's justification for declaring the '80s to be such a bipartisan love-fest?
The fact that Tip O'Neill visited Dutch in the hospitalafter he was shot. I mean, maybe Broder has so little remaining faith in the political process that he would be surprised if a current pol demonstrated, say, even basic sympathy, but if (God forbid) the President was wounded by a crazed loner tomorrow, don't you think Harry Reid would send a card? Wouldn't Pelosi at least pretend to be sad?