fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Oh, Broder

But the dynamic on both sides is trending toward extreme positions that would open the door to an independent or third-party challenge in 2008 aimed at the millions of voters in the center. ~David Broder I just heard Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos chatting on the ABC Evening News about the collapse of the immigration […]

But the dynamic on both sides is trending toward extreme positions that would open the door to an independent or third-party challenge in 2008 aimed at the millions of voters in the center. ~David Broder

I just heard Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos chatting on the ABC Evening News about the collapse of the immigration bill. Their conclusion? It was killed by extremists on both sides: liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans overwhelmed the centrists. It just goes to show that partisan polarization has made America ungovernable. ~Kevin Drum (who vehemently rejects this interpretation)

But together it added up to another example of a polarized political system in which the center could not hold.

————-

The collective failure of the two parties already appears to have stimulated interest in a third-party candidate for president in 2008 whose main promise would be to make Washington work. ~Dan Balz

Balz doesn’t seem to have any particular provisions he’d like to see the bill contain. He just thinks there’s a big “immigration problem” and that congress should “do something” — anything — about it. Most annoyingly of all, he dresses this quintessentially Beltway desire to see legislating qua legislating up in faux populist garb: “to those far removed from the backrooms of Capitol Hill, what happened will fuel cynicism toward a political system that appears incapable of finding ways to resolve the nation’s big challenges.” Why a failure of interest-group logrolling should fuel cynicism, I couldn’t quite say. ~Matt Yglesias

…a piece [Balz’s article] produced with stunning swiftness that nevertheless manages to incorporate every respectable, loaded, portentous goo-goo cliche available ~Mickey Kaus

Via Ross

If any “respectable” journalist wants some greater understanding of why political bloggers tend to look down on “the MSM,” why they tend to be very aggressive against so-called “centrists” and why they are relatively more “extreme” in their politics, just read Dan Balz’s article or David Broder’s column to get a sense of the obnoxious, condescending junk that Americans are expected to accept as “responsible,” mainstream political journalism.  As the bloated, sclerotic heart of establishmentarian “centrism, The Washington Post deserves some special criticism for routinely serving up this miserable fare.

As near as I can tell, the complaining of Broder, Balz, Gibson, et al. is that special interests (e.g., pro-immigration lobbyists, the Chamber of Commerce, etc.) failed to force through a bill that most Americans didn’t like and don’t want.  In the “centrist” view, those special interests represent the “center,” because the overall result matches up with the mindless, feel-good “centrist” view that immigration is good and must be encouraged in all forms and at all costs, while the Senators actually representing the interests of their constituents and making coherent, serious criticisms of various provisions of the bill are the “extremists.”  In short, for the “centrist” gang, responsible, detail-oriented policymaking is a danger to the system, while gargantuan, confused, special interest-driven legislation is the salve to the nation’s wounds. 

The result was what you would expect to get from an omnibus bill on something as complex and controversial as immigration legislation.  Had Congress attacked this in a piecemeal fashion, there would not have been so many obstacles preventing its passage.  It is a very good thing, from the restrictionist perspective, that the majority attacked this problem in this way, since it will show the dead-end that is “comprehensive” reform and it should also show the importance of attending to specific problems of immigration reform one at a time.  That will probably make it less likely that pro-amnesty forces will be able to successfully incorporate something like the “Z” visa scam in future legislation.  At the very least, it might require defenders of amnesty to make arguments for this sort of measure without being able to buy votes with other elements of a larger bill, or so we can hope.

It occurs to me that we have a contemporary example of what sort of policy is adopted when “the center” holds and “extremists” of left and right are ignored in policy debate: the Iraq war.  It seems to me that this is not a desirable model to follow.  Perhaps if there were more debate that was more representative of the diversity of opinion in this country, rather than an acceptance of the requirements of a “centrist” consensus focused on passing bad legislation for the sake of comity and collaboration, we would have fewer phenomenally bad policies both at home and abroad.  I know, it’s a lot to ask, but that’s because I’m an unreasonable extremist who wants to loose anarchy upon the world.

Drum is right that Republicans contributed most of the votes that killed the amnesty bill.  That this was in no small measure a result of Republican partisan solidarity against Harry Reid’s parliamentary rigidity and not the result of any serious or principled objection to some of the worst features of the bill is beside the point.  Most of the majority party lined up behind the bill, and most of the minority did not, which is what you would expect for a bill that belongs to the majority party’s legislative priorities and represents something that large parts of the minority party’s constituents oppose fiercely.  There were crucial defections from the Democratic side, among them Byron Dorgan, who may very soon pass Jim Webb as the Senate Democrat I like the most.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here