This may be the most vapid segment of TV purporting to be news that I've ever seen in my life. Sadly, it's from our "quality TV" PBS Newshour. It was preceded in the 12/09/2010 broadcast by a segment reporting that the House Democratic Caucus had voted in a closed meeting to reject President Obama's horrible tax deal with the Republicans. For those of us not initiated into the advanced insights of High Broderism, that might suggest that most Democrats in the House think Obama caved in way too much to the hard right demands of the Republicans. And that they don't like a tax deal which heavily subsidizes billionaires, builds in even greater maldistribution of wealth through a low estate tax, and takes the first concrete policy step toward Social Security Phaseout via the "payroll tax holiday".
This is outgoing Senators Evan Bayh (D-Blue Dog) and Bob Bennett (R-Utah) joining interviewer Jim Lehrer in a High Broderism ceremony glorifying the virtues of Compromise and lamenting how terrible it is that the extremes "both parties" get in the way of doing what the Republicans want. Online they give it the Broderian title of Outgoing Sens. Bayh, Bennett: Political Extremes Are Out of Touch. At least they picked a diverse pair. One is a stodgy old conservative, the other is a stodgy middle-aged conservative.
This called to mind Digby's observation in responding to President's Obama's rant on Tuesday against his "sanctimonious" base voters.
Alluding to David Broder's idolotry of bipartisanship, which in the Beltway Village always means trashing "the left", she wrote, "Someone should check up on David Broder. I'm afraid the orgasm he just had may have given him a heart attack."
Tags: bipartisanship
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