Broder embodies what's wrong at WaPo

Today's Washington Post, is a newspaper with amazing ability, yet one with an equally amazing amount of contradictions.

Very seldom do I read a newspaper column where I nearly jump out of my chair with outrage. Yesterday was one of those days. In a Thursday column (which I heard about yesterday), long-time WaPo political columnist David S. Broder wrote a piece, The Democrats' Gonzales, which almost defies description.

He begins his column with this whopper:

Here's a Washington political riddle where you fill in the blanks: As Alberto Gonzales is to the Republicans, Blank Blank is to the Democrats -- a continuing embarrassment thanks to his amateurish performance.

If you answered "Harry Reid," give yourself an A. And join the long list of senators of both parties who are ready for these two springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end.

To suggest that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is even on the same planet of incompetence and obfuscation as Alberto Gonzales is as asinine a comment as I've ever read from a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist.

To briefly compare...

Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, this past week became the first political leader in Washington with enough moxie to publicly conclude what a majority of the American people did months (if not years) ago - that the war is lost.

On the other hand, we have Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has more controversy surrounding him than... Karl Rove. Oops.

From claiming that there is no constitutional right to habeas corpus (see video below), his involvement in the firing of U.S. Attorneys, and his alleged involvement in the NSA warrantless wiretapping and domestic eavesdropping, to compare Reid to Gonzo is just absurd.

Concerning the NSA eavesdropping controversy, we'll never know the truth, or Gonzo's role, because the investigation was abruptly shut down after President Bush denied investigators the required security clearances to conduct their investigation.

But, perhaps nothing Gonzales has done is more controversial, or has had more far-reaching implications than his 2002 memorandum to Bush opining the Geneva Conventions were "outdated." From WaPo:

Gonzales is perhaps best known for a controversial January 2002 memorandum to the president in which he argued that Geneva Convention proscriptions on torture did not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners, and that the conventions are, in fact, "obsolete."

Many reason that this memo, at least indirectly, led to the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib.

What's more, the Bush administration's blithe dismissal of the Geneva Conventions has done more to damage the reputation of the United States than perhaps anything other than our ill-fated invasion of Iraq.

And Broder compares Alberto Gonzales to Harry Reid?

I think Katharine Graham just rolled over in her grave.

Hey David, I've got a little something for you...