David Broder Writes From "The Broder Zone"

RSI would like to congratulate David Broder on the publication of his 5,000th column on the "Need for Bi-Partisan Compromise." According to Broder:

"Scholars will also make the point that when such complex legislation is being shaped, the substance is likely to be improved when both sides of the aisle contribute ideas. And they will argue that public acceptance of the mandated changes in such programs will be greater if the law comes with the imprimatur of both parties."

Such an accomplishment. That's truly an important milestone and puts David Broder back ahead of Charles Krauthammer's "Israel Should Never Give An Inch" columns on the all-important, all-time list for "op-eds making the same point."

Nobody knows the story of the sacrifices David Broder has made to keep telling the bi-partisan story.

But here at Red State Impressions, we've learned from a real anonymous source that Broder has entered an alternative universe that was named especially for him--The Broder Zone.

In the Broder Zone, there's a special kind of bi-partisanship where moderate Democrats and conservative Republicans come to mutually beneficial compromises. Democratic presidents are more than willing to compromise with their conservative Republican colleagues and Republican presidents are always open to the ideas of Democratic moderates. The Broder Zone is such a wonderful place of compromise because both Democratic moderates and Republican conservatives recognize that liberals must be stopped at all costs.

All of that liberal talk about peace, health care, the environment, and corruption makes everybody who counts feel like they're immoral people or something like that. Liberals are bad, bad, bad. Liberals have cooties and bi-partisanship means that liberals will no longer be able to infect American politics.

Such is life in the Broder Zone.

Needless to say, the real world is not nearly as "nice" or "special" a place as the Broder Zone. That's why nobody as sane and sober as David Broder could write 5,000 columns about the Need for Bi-Partisan Compromise" if they lived in the real world.

In the real world, conservative Republicans lost all interest in "bi-partisan" compromise in 1999 when Tom DeLay became House majority leader. That's when conservative Republicans decided that Democratic liberals were not the only liberals. Follow this closely because the real world is much weirder than the Broder Zone. Republican conservatives decided that liberals were really Europeans, socialists, or even "fascists" if you've seen the cover of that Jonah Goldberg book nobody's read. Conservative Republicans then decided that Democratic moderates were the same as liberals, that Republican moderates were the same as Democratic moderates who were the same as liberals, and that many old-fashioned conservatives were the same as Republican moderates who were the same as Democratic moderates who were the same as liberals.

If you've read "The House that Jack Built," you'll understand how Republican conservatives were thinking.

So Republican conservatives refused to compromise with anybody because they refused to negotiate with liberals even if those liberals thought they were conservative Democrats, moderate Republicans, or conservative Republicans. Conservatives wouldn't talk with anyone like Diane Feinstein (moderate Democrat), Susan Collins (moderate Republican), or Bob Dole (conservative Republican) because that would be the same as negotiating with liberals and liberals were fascists who had cooties.

David Broder heroically responded to the principled aloofness of conservative Republicans by trying to convince everyone else to become more conservative so that sensitive conservatives wouldn't feel so offended by the taint of liberalism.

But that didn't work either. Conservative Republicans wanted no taxes, big wars, and a picture of Jesus on every dollar saying "I say unto you, kill your enemies," and they weren't willing to compromise their principles.

Then conservative Republicans found out that they really had to negotiate with moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats in order to get legislation passed.

So conservative Republicans lost interest in passing legislation.

In some ways, that wasn't so bad.

At first, conservative Republicans enjoyed themselves immensely by having affairs with their staffers, looking up their favorite DC hookers, hitting on Congressional pages, and dipping into their huge money piles for golf trips to Scotland, jobs for their relatives, and really nice wardrobes.

But then the media ruined all that.

So conservative Republicans started quitting their elective offices. Trent Lott quit the Senate to become a lobbyist, Billy Tauzin quit the House to become a lobbyist, and all sorts of Republicans decided not to run for re-election again.

Now Sarah Palin is quitting.

The bottom line for David Broder is that you can't have "bi-partisan compromise" in the real world because there are so few conservative Republicans left in office and they still don't want to compromise with anybody.

Even worse, there's a lot more liberals around these days and David Broder is still convinced that liberals have cooties.

So, David Broder made the ultimate sacrifice.

In 1005, Broder left the real world and entered the Broder Zone where conservatives wanted compromise, moderates weren't liberals, and everybody still thought liberals had cooties.

And he's been writing three columns a week on the "Need for Bi-Partisan Compromise" ever since.

God Bless Him!