Here’s what annoys me about David Broder. Midway through a pretty anodyne column about how the ongoing Obama-Clinton contest is bad news for Democrats, he writes:
In an age of deep cynicism about politicians of both parties, McCain is the rare exception who is not assumed to be willing to sacrifice personal credibility to prevail in any contest.
I don’t buy this “assumption” about McCain. Based on his re-positioning—and sometimes outright flips-flops—on issues like the Bush tax cuts, torture policy, and immigration, I’d say McCain is no more or less willing to sacrifice personal credibility than any other politician, but more skilled than most at presenting himself to the media as a principled straight-talker.
But maybe Broder has a different view. As a Washington Post columnist, he’s in a great position to render an informed judgment on the question. He’s seen all the candidates up close, and he’s got years of experience. And he is, after all, a columnist who is paid to write his opinions. I’d genuinely be curious to know what he thinks.
But we never find out. Instead, he hides behind the passive voice of that “assumed to be” clause, and smuggles in the notion of McCain’s principled-ness, disguised as a piece of political analysis.
Of course, Broder’s background is as a political reporter, and straight-out opinion has never been what comes naturally to him. That’s fine. But the effect of his observation about McCain, however it’s phrased, is to bolster the senator’s reputation as a straight-talker—a reputation which, apparently, no longer needs to be scrutinized, because it’s now just “assumed.” Nor is there any hint of awareness that this assumption, as far as it goes, didn’t just develop out of the ether—it’s a direct result of people like Broder implying it ad nauseum, without ever quite stopping to evaluate it critically.
This is the most aggravating species of writing: the kind which advances a particular, debatable viewpoint (in this case, that McCain is more principled than his Democratic rivals) without ever forthrightly owning up to the fact that it’s doing so, making it all but impossible to effectively challenge.
If David Broder made a clear argument as to why he believes McCain is a particularly principled politician, and why that suggests he’d make a good president, I’d almost certainly disagree with him. But I’d respect him. It’s hard to respect someone who can’t, or won’t, own up to his own opinion.
Zachary Roth is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He also has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Talking Points Memo, among other outlets.