On “Meet the Press” this morning, David Broder, who’s been having a rough year, blamed Democrats for the failures of the immigration reform bill.
“Well, the Democrats have taken the position that they now will do with the nation’s business. And if they’re not doing that business, and clearly the immigration issue is very much on people’s mind, I think they will suffer the same consequences that the Republicans suffered a year ago. People are fed up with seeing Washington bickering, fighting, infighting and never dealing with the issue.”
This strikes me as wrong for two reasons. First is the obvious problem with the observation: blaming Senate Dems for failing to pass the immigration bill is kind of silly. Dems worked with the White House on a compromise, brought the bill to the floor, and about four-in-five Senate Dems voted to support it. In contrast, 85% of the Senate GOP caucus voted against it, and the president apparently couldn’t move a single Republican vote. Broder finds Reid, Durbin, & Co. a convenient scapegoat, but if he’s looking for a party to blame, he’s got the wrong one.
Second is Broder’s notion that Dems are failing to do “the nation’s business” because the immigration bill died (or, at a minimum, is on life support). His analysis is over-simplified to the point of comedy: “people” want Congress to “deal with” immigration, and they’re “fed up” with the “fighting.” Broder’s colleague, Dan Balz, recently offered a similar assessment.
Regrettably, this is congressional analysis at its most vapid. Broder, neither today nor in print, actually explained what he’d like Congress to do about immigration; he just thinks lawmakers should do “something.”
But therein lies the rub: immigration policy is kind of complicated, and different people want it “fixed” in different ways. Broder’s position seems to be, “Fix the problem by passing a new policy.” But which policy? What’s the “problem” that needs fixing? Does Broder blame Senate Dems because they didn’t pass Bush’s bill, or because they didn’t embrace a more conservative approach to the issue?
Broder doesn’t say, but he’s “fed up” anyway.
A couple of weeks ago, E.J. Dionne had a column in which he explained, “There is the unspoken assumption that wisdom always lies in the political middle, no matter how unsavory the recipe served up by a given group of self-proclaimed centrists might be.”
Broder might want to read it.
