David Broder’s Continuing Embarrassment

Following up on his comments from Tuesday, the Washington Post’s David Broder today publishes a factually inaccurate screed aimed at Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

Titled “The Democrats’ Gonzales,” Broder begins the column tarring Reid as a “continuing embarrassment” whose “amateurish performance” is an “exhibition of ineptitude.”

Broder baselessly claims that a “long list of senators of both parties…are ready” for Reid’s tenure “to end.” Both parties? Here’s Broder’s own paper on Tuesday: “In a closed-door meeting, Reid acknowledged that he had a [White House] target on his back, and Democratic senators responded with a standing ovation.”

Broder criticizes Reid for making a series of supposed verbal “gaffes” — such as calling President Bush “a loser” — which Broder mocks as “displaced aggressiveness on the part of the onetime amateur boxer.” But despite his claim earlier this week that “every six weeks or so there’s another episode where [Reid] has to apologize,” Broder’s most recent example of a “gaffe” is 16 months old.

Broder then turns to Reid’s “consequential” gaffe, that the war in Iraq “is lost” (a view Reid happens to share with the majority of Americans). To highlight Harry Reid’s “inept discussion” of Iraq, Broder quotes…Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

On “Fox News Sunday,” Schumer offered this clarification of Reid’s off-the-cuff comment. “What Harry Reid is saying is that this war is lost — in other words, a war where we mainly spend our time policing a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis. We are not going to solve that problem. … The war is not lost. And Harry Reid believes this — we Democrats believe it. … So the bottom line is if the war continues on this path, if we continue to try to police and settle a civil war that’s been going on for hundreds of years in Iraq, we can’t win. But on the other hand, if we change the mission and have that mission focus on the more narrow goal of counterterrorism, we sure can win.”

Everyone got that? This war is lost. But the war can be won. Not since Bill Clinton famously pondered the meaning of the word “is” has a Democratic leader confused things as much as Harry Reid did with his inept discussion of the alternatives in Iraq.

It’s unclear why Reid is attacked for someone else’s remarks. But more importantly, Schumer’s argument (however impromptu) is perfectly clear when one isn’t simply trying to make fun of it. There are multiple wars in Iraq. Echoing the latest National Intelligence Estimate, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in February, “I believe that there are essentially four wars going on in Iraq.” The two most significant are Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence and al Qaeda terrorism. Reid and Schumer are saying that the U.S. military cannot possibly “win” Iraq’s sectarian civil war, but that we can still be victorious over the terrorists.

Broder concludes with his most aggressive attack, that Reid “has sent conflicting signals about his readiness” to lead the U.S. Senate in a time of war because of his views on Iraq:

Instead of reinforcing the important proposition — defined by the Iraq Study Group — that a military strategy for Iraq is necessary but not sufficient to solve the myriad political problems of that country, Reid has mistakenly argued that the military effort is lost but a diplomatic-political strategy can still succeed.

In fact, the Iraq Study Group recommended a withdrawal of U.S. combat forces by March 2008, a goal the Senate has adopted in its Iraq legislation. The ISG also states that President Bush’s current strategy of “[s]ustained increases in U.S. troop levels [will] not solve the fundamental cause of violence in Iraq.”

Broder’s column today truly backfires, showing himself — the “dean” of Washington journalism — not Harry Reid, to be an amateurish embarrassment.