The disingenuousness of David Broder...

...starts in the very first paragraph of this column, where he speaks of the "muscular tactics being used in congressional town meetings by some opponents of health care reform," yet says nary a word about the muscular tactics being used outside the town hall meetings by some supporters of health care reform. I also fail to see how the fate of Bruce Alger has anything to teach the opponents of a government takeover of health care. Take this source however you like, but this little snippet seems pretty impartial to me:

Alger's defeat can be attributed to:

• The slowly increasing liberalism of Dallas voters, who also purged the entire six-member Republican state legislative delegation from Dallas County,
• The political climate that stemmed from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas,
• The Democratic tradition of Texas,
• The presence of a native Texan, President Johnson, on the ballot, and
• The weak opposition candidacy of Alger's preferred presidential choice, Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

Of course it doesn't surprise me that Broder would try to spin that 1960 incident as THE one that swung the pendulum back to the Democrats in Texas, but even so I don't understand why he would think none of his readers would actually take a closer look at what he was saying. A lot of the time I can at least tolerate David Broder as he doesn't seem to be so nakedly partisan as many other pundits, but he's still wrong here.

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