Please Don't Kill David Broder

There are many reasons not to elect Hillary Clinton President besides the fact that her election could result in the collapse of Western Civilization as we know it. There is also a very important humanitarian consideration. Electing Hillary Clinton President could kill David Broder.

Washington Post columnist David Broder is 78 years old and I just don't think he could survive Hillary's being elected President. Broder hates the Clintons with a passion; in fact, it's the only thing he does do with a passion. "He came in here and he trashed the place and it's not his place," Broder once said of the way Bill Clinton treated Washington, which Broder bought years ago when real estate was cheap. But he was younger then and it didn't matter so much if he got himself all worked up and raised his blood pressure. Now it could be fatal.

Today, Broder wrote yet another column about the marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton, less than a week after he promised that he wouldn't in an online chat. "Will you and the media ever apply as much scrutiny to the Giuliani marriages as you have done to the single Clinton marriage?" someone had asked him during the chat and he replied, "I plan to leave both subjects alone." I know that old people can sometimes be a little forgetful so it's possible that he didn't remember saying that. But I think it's also possible that he just can't help it. I think for days he tried to resist discussing the Clintons' marriage in disparaging terms but in the end his hatred of them was too strong. Now, I'm very worried that Broder won't be able to make it through four years of yelling at Hillary to get off his lawn without hurting himself.

David Broder, the "dean of American journalism," built his reputation on his ability to be dispassionate and not take sides on issues or have any strong opinions at all. People in Washington think of him as a dependable old jalopy that is always in neutral. Even when President Kennedy was assassinated he didn't let emotion sway him, as he once explained once to a group of Chinese students: "On November 22, 1963, I was one of the journalists following President Kennedy's motorcade. You know what happened later -- the President was assassinated and I was right on the spot. As an ordinary man, I wanted leave the scene, hide somewhere, and weep. But I managed to calm myself and to report the event in the most objective way." While other reporters lost their heads, Broder refused to take sides after the President was killed. Was he for the assassination or against it? It was impossible to tell from his reporting. No matter what his personal feelings might have been, as a reporter he had to be objective when it came to the issue of whether killing Kennedy was a good thing or a bad thing.

But like Spock in the midst of Pon farr, every seven years or so Broder loses control over his emotions and his seething hatred for the Clintons resurfaces. Many pundits in Washington are afraid of what Clinton's candidacy might do to his carefully cultivated reputation for honesty and even-handedness. They are attempting to derail Clinton's campaign not so much because they think she would make a terrible President, but because they are so terribly worried about David Broder's health. They will stop at nothing to keep Hillary from being President in order to protect their friend from bursting a blood vessel. Every time Maureen Dowd, for example, writes an embarrassing column about Hillary, it is really just a desperate attempt to save David Broder from himself.

So if you are thinking of voting for Hillary, please take a moment and consider what you are doing. You are not just making America vulnerable to terrorists, immigrants and socialized medicine, you are killing David Broder. Every vote for Hillary is like a vote to disconnect David Broder from life support.

Share This Post



Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Hillary Clinton, David Broder, Washington Post, Maureen Dowd, Giuliani, Bill Clinton, Politics
Carnivals: Carnival of Political Punditry, Carnival of Education