Some call The Washington Post's David Broder the "dean of the Washington press corps." Ken Silverstein of Harper's phrases it slightly differently: Broder, he writes, "has long had his head so far up Washington’s ass that he is incapable of understanding that there are opinions in America beyond the ten Beltway insiders he gets his talking points from." This affliction, he is quick to point out, is one "from which much of the D.C. press corps suffers, though generally not in as advanced a state as Broder's." Under the headline of "David Broder Rushed to Hospital for Emergency Craniorectal Procedure," Silverstein enumerates his objections to Broder's Sunday column, which approved of White House press secretary Robert Gibbs's recent bashing of "the professional left."

On top of being "a typical Broder snoozer," the column needlessly attacks John Judis, a writer for The New Republic, "for having opinions that Broder deems out of the mainstream--meaning anything to the left of, say, Senator Blanche Lincoln." Furthermore, Broder winds up praising the late Ted Stevens and former congressman Dan Rostenkowski: why, asks Silverstein, is Broder so intolerant of liberals but completely fine with "crooked" politicians?

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Heather Horn