Worn-out Beltway trope #1: Our modern president, aka Daddy, must protect us at all times, lest he be caught off guard, which, in Broder's mind, would be all his fault and an indicator that he isn't "serious" or worthy of official Washington's respect.
Was Christmas Day 2009 the same kind of wake-up call for Barack Obama that Sept. 11, 2001, had been for George W. Bush?
The near-miss by a passenger plotting to blow up an American airliner as it flew into Detroit seems to have shocked this president as much as the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did the last.
Both presidents had had plenty of warnings in the form of threats and even incidents. But both were caught off guard: Bush reading to a classroom of youngsters; Obama on a family vacation in Hawaii.
It's as if the president -- to Broder, our supreme, benevolent, all-knowing commander -- must be locked away in a top secret War Room at all hours of the day personally monitoring the constant stream of incoming intelligence, domestic and international.
Beltway trope #2: Sound the war drum!
For now, we are conducting a proxy war in Yemen, but that may change. Al-Qaeda's local enablers must learn that there is a price to be paid when Uncle Sam is attacked from their bases.
Jesus. Hasn't this crotch-grabbing machismo gotten us into enough deep shit already? Is Broder completely unaware, or has he even ever contemplated the possibility, that this militant attitude is a prime, if not the preeminent, inflammatory recruiting tool for al-Qaeda, not to mention the attitudinal nexus of all that is wrong about America's view of itself and the rest of the world?
Beltway trope #3: Obama has tried to do too much and should now focus on terror -- as if he wasn't already in directing a five-front war -- as his "new priority."
--and--
Beltway trope #4: The naive, or "benign" as Broder calls it, leadership style of the president will only change when Barack Obama (and by proxy, Democrats) becomes "serious" and comfortable being a war president.
For Obama to establish a new priority would obviously be much more difficult than it appeared to be for Bush. And this new priority would be a much less comfortable fit for Obama than leading a war on terrorism was for Bush.
Nonetheless, events have their own logic. The Christmas plot appears to have shaken Obama like nothing else that happened in his first year. When he allowed the White House to quote his warning to his Cabinet colleagues that another "screw-up" like that could not be tolerated, he seemed to signal that his benign leadership style had reached its limits.
Many have been looking for a similar shift of tone in his dealings with the dictators in Iran and North Korea and even in his tolerance for the politics-as-usual maneuverings of many Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.
It's as if the DC media establishmentarians like Broder, boosted by the ratings trolls within the cable news industrial complex, refuse to do or allow any critical thought of the ramifications of America's policies in the Middle East and beyond, as well as the effects of what they write or say.
My issue here isn't that he's criticizing Obama, but rather, the criticism is lame, predictable and largely void of any value. Unfortunately, this is all too common from the DC media stars.
After eight years of incompetent, chest-beating leadership from the Bush administration that brought an endless stream embarrassment, failure, death and global chaos, Broder seemingly wants more. And the tragic irony is that Obama's policies aren't all that much different than Bush's. But the Broders of the world have no interest in critical thought. Arrogance and narrow-mindedness are not only valued but also rewarded. It's the Washington way.
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