The Dean Loses His Mind

Brilliant assessment by the fossilized David Broder:

EDWARDS: White House and congressional Republicans really blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for saying the war in Iraq is lost. Do Republicans believe it can still be won?

BRODER: Uh, Republicans, some of them believe that, and Democrats, by and large, wish that Harry Reid would learn to engage mind before mouth opens. This has become kind of a pattern for him, and, uh, I think at some point down the road the Democrats are gonna have to have a little caucus and decide how much further they want to carry Harry Reid. They’ve got able people on the Senate side, and they don’t have to put up with this kind of bumbling performance forever.

EDWARDS: You think Harry Reid is an embarrassment to the Democrats?

BRODER: I think so. I mean, he has been a pretty effective leader but he is verbally just a real loose cannon and it seems to me, Bob, that about every six weeks or so there’s another episode where he has to apologize for the way in which he has bungled the Democratic case.

He's an effective leader, but sometimes he says mean things that offend the delicate sensibilities of old men. So given that, he should leave. That's unbelievable in its arrogance and cluelessness. Broder treats politics like they're a tea party, where if someone uses the wrong spoon for the clotted cream he suffers the tut-tuts of the other old biddies. How could anyone who is an "effective leader" be unfit to lead because of a "gaffe," broadly defined as "saying what all of the American people believe"?

I'm eagerly anticipating Broder's farewell column, scheduled for some time in 2037 before he heads into the cryogenic chamber.

P.S. A real columnist, Paul Krugman, gets this right:

"There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met."