Please Stop Mr. Broder

Will the Washington please put David Broder out of his misery? Maybe send him to New Mexico or Idaho? His column from today is a damn embarrassment as he voices his frustration that Scooter Libby was prosecuted by Patrick Fitzgerald:

Despite the absence of any underlying crime, Fitzgerald filed charges against Libby for denying to the FBI and the grand jury that he had discussed the Wilson case with reporters. Libby was convicted on the testimony of reporters from NBC, the New York Times and Time magazine -- a further provocation to conservatives.

I think they have a point. This whole controversy is a sideshow -- engineered partly by the publicity-seeking former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife and heightened by the hunger in parts of Washington to "get" Rove for something or other.

Like other special prosecutors before him, Fitzgerald got caught up in the excitement of the case and pursued Libby relentlessly, well beyond the time that was reasonable.

You see, this whole unfortunate business was not the fault of the Bush Administration. Instead, Broder blames Wilson and some unnamed evildoers who were out to get Karl Rove. Scooter Libby and the Bush Administration are the victims here. Yet in the very next paragraph, Mr. Broder is forced to admit that Libby broke the law:

Nonetheless, on the fundamental point, Walton and Fitzgerald have it right. Libby let his loyalty to his boss and to the administration cloud his judgment -- and perhaps his memory -- in denying that he was part of the effort to discredit the Wilson pair. Lying to a grand jury is serious business, especially when it is done by a person occupying a high government position where the public trust is at stake.

Contrast his reaction on this matter, to what he had to say with the Clinton impeachment (from Atrios):

One of my favorite columns by Broder was when he got in a high snit when a bunch of history professors signed a letter condemning the Clinton impeachment. The beginning and ending:

When academics decide to become activists, they sometimes bring badly needed wisdom and perspective to raging political debates. But when they plunge in heedlessly, they risk looking ridiculous.

Both sides were on display last week at a hotel ballroom where three noted American historians -- speaking for more than 400 of their profession -- unloaded a broadside condemnation of the impeachment proceedings the House has voted to begin against President Clinton.

The rhetoric of their statement, read by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. of City University of New York, began on a relatively calm note and built to a tantrum.
...

This tenured trashing of Congress for meeting its responsibility says more about the state of the history profession than about the law of the land.

Class dismissed.

So in the warped mind of David Broder- the Clinton witch hunt, which never resulted in criminal prosecution and wasted millions of tax dollars, was the right thing to do. The investigation into the Bush Administration's actions, which led to the outing of an undercover agent who worked as a specialist in non-conventional weapons, not that big of a deal. God help me.

A Tale of Two Southern Candidates

Yesterday, I wrote about the media love fest for actor Fred Thompson. And today, Media Matters has an interesting piece on the ways the mainstream media ignores certain traits of conservative candidates, which might paint them in an unflattering way. I thought this particular segment on Fred Thompson was interesting:

So when longtime lobbyist and Hollywood actor Fred Thompson -- a man who once rented a red pickup truck in order to campaign in Tennessee as a man of the people -- indicated this week that he would seek the Republican presidential nomination, we knew how the media would describe him: Authentic. Folksy.

Let's back up a moment: Thompson didn't even drive the rented pickup, as The Washington Monthly reported in 1996:

Finishing his talk, Thompson shakes a few hands, then walks out with the rest of the crowd to the red pickup truck he made famous during his 1994 Senate campaign. My friend stands talking with her colleagues as the senator is driven away by a blond, all-American staffer. A few minutes later, my friend gets into her car to head home. As she pulls up to the stop sign at the parking lot exit, rolling up to the intersection is Senator Thompson, now behind the wheel of a sweet silver luxury sedan. He gives my friend a slight nod as he drives past. Turning onto the main road, my friend passes the school's small, side parking area. Lo and behold: There sits the abandoned red pickup, along with the all-American staffer.

The pickup was, literally, a rented prop designed to help a wealthy actor/Washington lobbyist/trial lawyer play the role of salt-of-the-earth populist.

Compare the rather conspicuous silence on this aspect with Fred Thompson with the scorn that has been heaped upon John Edwards for getting an expensive haircut. Both of these men come from the working class, yet John Edwards is the only one called out as a hypocrite. For Thompson, the pundits are willing to turn the other way when any incongruities are revealed. This is eerily reminiscent of Bush's campaigns in both 1999 and 2003, he got the manly man treatment from the press even though he was an east coast elite. While both John Kerry and Al Gore were treated as effete intellectuals.

IOKIYAR

Remember a couple of weeks ago when CNN was all a tither over Nancy Pelosi visiting Syria? Some on CNN thought the trip meant that Pelosi was not only putting her job as SotH in jeopardy, but also the safety of this country.

Well...Condi Rice is visiting Syria, and what has CNN got to say about that? Do you think they brought up the fact that very recently the Bush administration was scolding Pelosi for visiting Syria?

As you might expect---crickets.