David Broder remembers three heroes of his (just maybe not all that well)

In this 1964 photo from the Udall Archives, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall (1920-2010, left) and Arizona Rep. Mo Udall (1922-1998, right) are seen with their uncle Jesse Udall (1893-1980), a justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, as the boys' father, Levi Udall (1891-1960), had been. (Just for the record, current New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall is Stewart's son and Colorado Sen. Mark Udall is Mo's son.)

by Ken

Is it possible that David S. Broder isn't dead after all, but has just been enjoying a leisurely retirement these last 20 or 30 years since the famous Broder Monkeys took over the writing of his columns? Today's outing, remembering three longtime D.C.-insider friends who died recently, reminds us that he isn't a total idiot, or at least wasn't born that way.

When I was a young reporter in the 1960s, this city was full of people who did their jobs not only with skill and energy but also with unquestioned integrity. We didn't think much about it then, so commonplace was it, but when three of those people died almost simultaneously last month, I remembered how vital their example was.

He does seem right on the verge of saying, "Whereas nowadays this city is full of lazy, superficial, brain-locked blowhards like what I've turned into."

We've already talked about the first of the trio, Jerald terHorst, who resigned after 30 days as President Gerald Ford's press secretary in response to the pardon of Richard Nixon. The Broder Man adds a certain fuzzy warmth to the memory. "Back then," he says, "and for long years afterward, Jerry terHorst was one of my closest friends in Washington." We do learn that terHorst and their colleagues George Kentera and Richard Dudman were "dogged, devoted reporters," and it might have been nice to have an anecdote that illustrates this, rather than:

Four of us who worked for afternoon dailies in Detroit, St. Louis, Newark and Washington with Sunday editions got together with a crazy scheme. We wanted to do joint interviews with important newsmakers that would run in our Sunday papers and scoop "Meet the Press" and the other Sunday morning TV shows.

It never worked, and eventually we gave up the idea.

Well, okay . . .

The second departed friend is Texan reporter-turned-political aide Liz Carpenter, who went to work for Lyndon Johnson when he was nominated for the vice presidency in 1960 and continued working variously for Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. In LBJ's White House, we learn, "Her smarts and irrepressible sense of humor survived the tumultuous years of his presidency." Again it might have been nice to have an anecdote illustrating those smarts and that sense of humor at work, perhaps instead of what seems to me a distinctly odd tribute:

She fought chauvinism in the Washington press corps and the wider world, and she treated aging with the same scorn she showed male jerks. In the last Carpenter speech I heard, she said she had just come across an envelope from the Alzheimer's Association and thought to herself, "I'm getting to the point I ought to send them something. So I opened the envelope and read, 'Thank you for your contribution.' "

Um, yes . . . er, say what?

Finally there's former Arizona Congressman and then Labor Secretary Stewart Udall. The Broder Man tells us that his younger brother Mo, who succeeded him in the Arizona House seat, 'is one of my all-time favorite politicians," and a lot of us -- even those of us who didn't know him -- think of Mo Udall as something of a hero. If the Broder Man has nothing more to say about what made Mo one of his favorite pols, well, it's big brother Stew he's writing about.

I don't think any of us is apt to quarrel with the idea that Stewart Udall, after "challenging the conservative Democratic establishment of Arizona to deliver the 1960 convention delegation to John F. Kennedy," "went on to become one of the best interior secretaries ever." Again, instead of another lame "last time I saw him" anecdote, something that gives us an inkling what made him a superior interior secretary might have been appropriate, rather than the incredibly lame "his achievements include national parks and public lands across the nation." I mean what about those "national parks and public lands across the nation"? Every interior secretary deals with them, after all, including the Republican secretaries who work so hard to shrink, exploit, and befoul them.

But what really shocks me is the characterization of Stewart Udall as "a precursor of today's 'Blue Dogs,'" apparently because he "made his reputation in the House of Representatives by standing up to huge pressure from the Teamsters and other unions and fighting for passage of labor legislation in the late 1950s." I assume what he means is anti-labor legislation (I guess in the walled Village of which the Broder Man has become one of the dribblingest elders, it's pretty much the same thing; it's pretty much inconceivable that respectable people might wish to support the interests of working people), but really now, is there anyone else who remembers Stew Udall as an anti-labor ConservaDem? (Hey, didn't we just have him "challenging the conservative Democratic establishment of Arizona"?)

Now if the Broder Man, by virtue of his friendship with the man, has actual knowledge that he regarded the Blue Dogs as anything other than a festering parasite on the body politic, he would be performing a service of sorts by sharing that with us. Because on the record, it's hard to think of any pol of the second half of the 20th century whose career stands in sharper opposition to everything the Blue Dogs stand for. I don't think I'm being overly touchy in suggesting that in the absence of supporting evidence, this "tribute" to his late friend is more like a slur, even a libel.

Hmm, I seem to recall that we set out to give the Broder Man his modest due for a column that for once wasn't the blithering of an inbred Village tribal chieftain. Something seems to have gone awry along the way. Maybe it had something to do with reading more carefully what he actually wrote?

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Glenn G remembers Jerry terHorst's resignation after the Nixon pardon as something "that would not happen today"

Let's see, at last count the total number of Obama administration officials who have quit in protest of White House retention and enforcement of Republican policies is . . . er . . . wait, let me check my notes . . . hold on . . . um, roughly zero.

"The principle in which [Ford press secretary Jerald terHorst's] resignation was grounded -- that the highest political elites should be held to the same standards as ordinary Americans when it comes to breaking the law -- is one of the most widely mocked and explicitly rejected ideas in our current political culture."

-- Glenn Greenwald in his Friday Salon.com post,

"Things that would not happen today"

by Ken

I'm just catching up with Glenn Greenwald's Friday post, "Things that would not happen today," spurred by news of the death of Jerald terHorst, who served as White House press secretary for 30 days after Gerald Ford succeeded the resigned-in-disgrace Richard Nixon as president in 1974 -- until he resigned the day after President Ford issued his blanket pardon of Nixon, writing in his resignation letter:

As your spokesman, I do not know how I could credibly defend that action in the absence of a like decision to grant absolute pardon to the young men who evaded Vietnam military service as a matter of conscience and the absence of pardons for former aides and associates of Mr. Nixon who have been charged with crimes -- and imprisoned -- stemming from the same Watergate situation.

More power to Glenn for jumping on this. As he writes:

It's virtually impossible to imagine anyone undertaking an act like this in contemporary Washington. Indeed, the principle in which his resignation was grounded -- that the highest political elites should be held to the same standards as ordinary Americans when it comes to breaking the law -- is one of the most widely mocked and explicitly rejected ideas in our current political culture (Look Forward, Not Backward -- for Elite Crimes). Beyond that, anyone who sacrificed a position of political power, and did so based on an announced principle, would be derided by our power-worshiping political media as UnSerious, UnSavvy, and an overly earnest loser.

Ain't that the truth? The post obviously struck a nerve. The last time I looked, it had drawn 438 comments. I haven't even tried to read through them. I have a pretty good idea what they're saying, and I agree. Here's one near the beginning of the procession from commenter Ed Miller: "Politicians vet their underlings for moral integrity and disqualify them if they have any. They need people with more flexibility."

The case of former Secretary of State Colin Powell comes up, I note, on the ground that he eventually revealed that he thought about quitting over the Bush regime's campaign of lies about Iraq. In fact, the Powell case is a perfect illustration of Glenn's point. Powell gets no points, zero, for thinking about quitting. He had his chance to quit, and chose not to. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference, but we'll never know. At least Powell could have claimed to have some principles.

As Glenn writes (with abundant links onsite):

A decade of government radicalism and lawbreaking that included torture, aggressive war, indefinite detentions, and illegal domestic surveillance did not generate a single resignation of this kind. We had a handful of truly brave whistle-blowers, but other than that, the most that happened was that officials were willing to reveal and condemn the corruption in which they actively participated -- only long after it happened and once they needed a way to sell a book and rehabilitate their reputation.

Interestingly, in his updates, Glenn records reports of "a couple mid-level resignations" in the Bush regime "in protest over the core unfairness of the military commissions system -- notably from members of the U.S. military who apparently took concepts of 'honor' seriously," and another, similar example in " the recent resignation of former Marine Capt. Matthew Hoh in protest over the futility of the war in Afghanistan," adding: "It is interesting that such conscience resignations occur among mid-level current and former military members, but not among the political class."

This all rises a level or two of chillingness when Glenn raises his speculative stakes:

Then again, it's virtually impossible to imagine Richard Nixon being forced to resign in today's political culture. After all, a federal court just ruled that the prior President violated the criminal law in how he spied for years on American citizens, while the current administration did everything possible to shield those crimes from judicial review (by claiming they were "state secrets"), and it barely caused a ripple.

For today's pols, getting caught in a sex scandal or a financial one can trigger the unraveling of a career. (Note that I say "can trigger," not "will trigger" career demise. While John Ensign seems on political death watch -- if not headed for the slammer, for his parlay of sex + financial scandal -- David "The Diaper Man" Vitter continues to mouth loony-right faux pieties as he slithers his way to reelection.) Short of that, it's all a question of how good your P.R. operation is.

Sigh.

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