Ken Silverstein of Harper's has discovered that Washington Post columnist David Broder has been spending time recently on the business lecture circuit. Among the groups to which he's spoken in the past few years are the National Association of Manufacturers, the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, the American Council for Capital Formation, and an organization of health insurance companies.
As Silverstein points out, this is especially notable because Broder's spent years criticizing journalists who do this as being "greedy" and appearing to be "part of the establishment and therefore part of the problem." Silverstein has yet to receive a response from Broder about how much he's been paid for these speeches, although he did find that Broder seems to have received $12,000 for a 2006 talk.
And this behavior is nothing new from Broder. For decades his shtick has been to posture as an independent-minded guardian of the DC press corps' conscience, while engaging in exactly the kind of intellectually corrupt Washington insider-dom he publicly deplores. In fact, he's so shameless it almost makes you feel bad for everyone there with him in the DC muck. They may be all be whores, but Broder -- whenever he's on break from servicing the clientele -- makes the rest of the hookers listen to pious sermons about the evils of prostitution.*
What's unclear is whether Broder is deeply devious, or suffers from the kind of anti-self awareness usually associated only with severe brain damage. Perhaps it's the latter, and he believes those nice gentlemen are leaving the envelopes of cash on the dresser because he and they share a deep emotional connection.
Whatever the case, here's a little-known but especially hilarious example of Broder at his most Broder-iffic.
Back in November, 1988, the National Press Club gave Broder a "Fourth Estate Award" at a fancy black-tie dinner. The Washington Post reprinted Broder's speech:
BRODER: The redeeming virtue of the press I've known and been part of is its orneriness -- its sense of apartness -- its insistence on going its own way. Especially its determination to keep its distance from government, not only to avoid censorship, but to avoid co-optation. Subversion by seduction. The insidious inhibition of intimacy...
There's a real danger in blurring the line between politicians and journalists, in letting ourselves become androgynous Washington Insiders, all of us seeking and wielding influence in our own ways. The people know what to do with politicians who displease them: They can always vote them out of office. They have no such recourse against us in the press. And if they see us as part of a power-wielding clique of Insiders, they're going to be resentful as hell that they have no way to call us to account...
Besides, I can't for the life of me fathom why any journalists would want to become Insiders, when it's so damn much fun to be outsiders -- irreverent, inquisitive, impudent, incorrigibly independent outsiders -- thumbing our nose at authority and going our own way.
This would be excruciating enough even if all you knew was that David Broder was a longtime columnist for the Post op-ed page...which is "independent" from the government in the same way sock puppets are "independent" from the hands inside them. It's worse if you're familiar with Broder's writing, which -- in his determination to explain we're governed by honorable men who sometimes are forced to torture and kill due to an excess of good intentions -- is as dangerous and stupefying as an overdose of anesthesia.
But it was Broder's audience that night twenty years ago that made his speech akin to a lecture on proper etiquette from Jeffrey Dahmer. Who was the other main guest celebrating Broder's orneriness, independence, and determination to keep his distance from government? It was JAMES BAKER.
James Baker, then the incoming Secretary of State. Before that, George H.W. Bush's consigliere and Reagan's Treasury Secretary. After that, the guy who ran George W. Bush's Florida operation after the 2000 election. If you found the most inside of Washington insiders and then cut him open, hiding inside would be James Baker.
Here's what the Washington Post Style section said about that jolly night, where Broder excoriated those journalists "seduced" by "the insidious inhibition of intimacy" while celebrating his own impudence and irreverence:
Baker even brought a little personal handwritten note from President-elect Bush to Broder, reminiscing about how "you've come a long way" since the time the Bushes, Broders, Bakers and others spent three weeks touring China together in 1977 in a kind of private bonding experience (Bush was between public jobs at the time) that they all remember fondly. Ann Broder and Susan Baker were there with their husbands last night.
"Perhaps our nation is a little kinder and a little gentler thanks to David Broder," Baker said. "Read my lips, David. You're a pro."
And indeed, George H.W. Bush was exactly right. That David Broder: he's a pro.
*In all seriousness, I apologize to prostitutes for comparing them to corporate DC journalists. Those trapped in the hell of coerced sex-work (such as many Iraqi women) are probably decent human beings, unlike the people (such as corporate DC journalists) who put them there.
More of my crass jeering about David Broder can be found here, here and here. I learned about Broder's 1988 speech from Eric Alterman's book Sound and Fury; Alterman paints a fairminded but damning portrait of Broder here. Glenn Greenwald says this and this. Paul Begala believes "David Broder is Gasbag." And obviously: Broderella.)