High Broderism

Definer discovered a new word today and he loves it! It's "high broderism," a reference to Washington Post columnist David Broder. Broder is the most infuriating of all Main Stream Media (i.e. "MSM") personalities. The frustration with Broder is not that he is unable to call a spade a spade (judging by his writing he must be smart enough to do this), but instead because he won't call a spade a spade under the misimpression that outing spades is a politically partisan activity. Broder, for example, hid behind a legal facade when he wrote about how Clinton allegedly lied (December 21, 1998). Clinton did not allegedly lie, he did lie when he proclaimed that he had not had sexual relations with "that woman." I suspect that had Broder and his MSM followers told the truth that Clinton had lied, the right wingnuts (another great neologism) would not have reacted as vehemently as they did . . . against the press. Now Broder's dogged and stupid desire to be "non-partisan" has cost him the support of the left as he refuses to acknowledge that the president falsely led a nation into war for political reasons (cherry picking evidence, creating new offices of yes-men to re-analyze intelligence in order to get the right result, firing contradictory voices, destroying the lives of critics . . .). Instead, Broder holds the the "non-partisan" fallacy that both sides have legitimate arguments. It may be either that the democrats are right or that the republicans are right, Broder has always argued - that's "high broderism." But when one abandons the truth in favor of either/or arguments, one loses both legs to stand on.

Better yet, "high broderism," is a subtle dig at the stodginess of Broder's home newspaper, the Washington Post which has lost the ethics, the commitment to truth, and all relations with both community and reality. Instead, Broder and the Post have become High Brow and as such, increasingly irrelevant. Where once the Post and its columnists got ahead of stories, now they are far behind. One example: as the country has turned solidly (as in 70% of the population) against George Bush's War, the Post has not rescinded the support it was only too happy to give in 2003. Applying high broderism, I would argue that either the public is right, or George Bush and the Washington Post are right. Abandoning high broderism, I choose the public.