Ezra Klein criticizes David Broder's astonishingly idiotic and dishonest op-ed.

Kudos to Ezra for criticizing the dean of the Washington Post Employees. That takes intellectual integrity and courage as it sure won't help his career.


My reading of part of the op-ed which I read before losing my temper is that Broder has made it clear that, to him, "deficit reduction" means "cutting social welfare spending." It has long been fairly obvious that this is what Broder (and Hiatt) mean. Broder has eliminated all doubt.

I quote Broder. I absolutely have not distorted anything by removing necessary context (click the link and check).

will add to the federal budget deficit?"

The answer: Less than one-fifth of the voters -- 19 percent of the sample -- think he will keep his word.

[skip]

the public has it right. These bills, as they stand, are budget-busters. ... "... . As of now, it's basically a big entitlement expansion, plus tax increases."

So tax increases have no effect on whether a bill is or isn't a budget buster. Broder is not talking about the deficit at all. When he says "fiscally responsible" he means "cuts social welfare spending." When he says "deficit" he doesn't mean spending minus tax revenues he means either spending or spending minus military spending.

Furthermore Broder dismisses as trivial the differences between the House and Senate bills "These bills." A hundred billion here a hundred billion there and no way will it amount to anything worthy of David Broder's attention.

No one who can read English can dispute this anymore. One can only ask if Broder doesn't know what "deficit" means or is he trying to trick his readers into thinking that tax increases can't reduce the deficit ?

I mean is he an idiot or a liar or both ?

Broder certainly has no place in responsible journalism and should be fired. Of course so should Krauthammer, Kristol, and Hiatt. Personally I'd fire Will too, but I can see how some people think that Will is not completely intellectually bankrupt.

Obviously Broder should be replaced by Klein. More than that, picking up Broders intellectual garbage is a waste of Klein's valuable time.

How did a once great paper come to this ?