Broder “Borders” On Demagoguery

You could argue, though, that he crossed over it in this column pertaining to the recent failure of the U.S. Senate to pass the immigration bill (whether or not it constitutes “reform” depends on your point of view I guess – registration may be required).

To be fair, The Dean Of Beltway Journalism (tongue firmly in cheek here) makes some good points about the struggle Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano faces with trying to curb the flow of illegal immigrants into her state. And she’s clearly trying to strike a balance between trying to keep out additional illegals, providing for their children who are blameless in this mess, and trying to punish employers who hire these individuals (this is where Broder does actual reporting – yes, I’m serious).

However, by noting only that Napolitano wrote a letter to Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Broder is clearly trying to imply that the failure to pass this bill falls squarely on the shoulders of the Democrats.

I will acknowledge that there was a bit of split on the part of the Dems here, but as this New York Times story notes, 37 Republicans voted against ending debate on the bill and moving it to final passage, basically killing the legislation outright.

In addition to cretins like Jim DeMint and Jeff Sessions, Repugs who are now only too happy to crow that the Dems can’t accomplish anything even though the Repugs continue to obstruct the work we tasked the Dems to do by opposing them at every turn, we have Mitch McConnell doing his hangdog “gee whiz, gosh, I’m just sooo sorry but, dang it, I just have to oppose another bill to make sure the Dems get zero credit and lots of blame” act, as he does here.

Spare me your pitiable pontifications about how you wanted to do your job but felt as if you couldn’t somehow, Mr. Elaine Chao (and what about that supposed era of bipartisanship between Reid and McConnell that Broder was hallucinating about here)?

And regarding Sessions, I will at least give him some points for honesty when he notes that the ridiculous confrontational tone of this whole debate was stoked by freeper talk radio.

And one more thing: as long as I’m mentioning Broder, I have to note his utterly misinformed column on the sentencing of Scooter Libby here, which amplifies Broder’s turnabout into the leader of the D.C. pundit class as someone apparently no longer capable of genuine investigative analysis such as that regarding the pardoning of the Iran-Contra crooks here (noted by Atrios).