Broder's Making Stuff Up Again

What BooMan said.

Relentless mockery by bloggers does have an influence on how Bigfoot reporters go about their job. Eventually, they anticipate the mockery and take precautions against it. Ideally, this involves fact-checking but it also takes this form...paragraphs that begin:

First, the data that shout that I am wrong.

That's how David Broder transitions from his lede to his argument in today's column. This is a form of fact-checking, albeit one in which the facts are checked only so that they can be ignored. You can call it a half-step in the right direction. At least it demonstrates the first signs of self-awareness. Broder, as is always his want, is writing yet another column about the greatness of bipartisanship and centrism. But he knows that the Republicans unanimously rejected the budget and nearly-unanimously rejected the stimulus. He knows that the 61% partisan divide in presidential approval is at an historic high for this period in a new presidency. In the past, he might have just ignored these facts but today he takes them head-on. Of course, his procedure is to ignore other facts.

Bottom line, Broder's convinced it's April 1993, not 2009. To these guys, it's always 1993, and the GOP ascendancy is just around the corner.