By this time [the 1988 presidential campaign, which Grove covered alongside the veteran Broder], David was a late-middle-aged guy in the middle of his 17th election cycle, yet he wasn?t jaded at all. Instead, he approached his task with a palpable sense of joy. He loved his job, to which he brought a humming energy that you didn?t even notice at first, because he was calm and calming under deadline. He loved going to campaign events and chatting up the faithful. He loved politicians and their foibles?and he was deeply entertained by them and entertaining about them, gently skewering his targets with a piercing, deadpan wit (mostly after hours over dinner; not as often in print). He was also a master of the game, knowing much more about it than most of its players. Beyond that, it was, for David, more than a game: He took the proper functioning of democracy very seriously.
A number of things struck me about this passage.
Whatever "humming energy" Broder brought to his daily tasks somehow managed never to make it into his actual writing, where each sentence was carefully starched and flavor-removed.
"Foibles"--it's such a folksy word, as if politicians are people just like you and me with their funny little quirks that made them endearingly colorful even when they're, oh I don't know, committing us to slaughtering war or trying to find ways to gut social programs, as during Reagan's high noon. (And Lord knows Reagan had his chuckling foibles, sitting right there in his jellybean jar.) And only in the chummy collegiality of Washington punditry could the phrase "gently skewering" not be recognized for the humbug oxymoron that it is, but this is the part that got me:
"...gently skewering his targets with a piercing, deadpan wit (mostly after hours over dinner; not as often in print)."
"Not as often"?--how about hardly ever? I mean, try to recall some memorable shaft of "piercing, deadpan wit" from Dean Broder--that'll while away a train ride or two.
And why did this reputed deadpan Gore Vidalish wit seldom visit his columns and campaign dispatches? He was on the Post's op-ed page for, what, 40 years? What was he waiting for? Why even become a political writer if you hold back that much critical texture? Yeah, I know, prestige, the respect of your colleagues, important people taking your calls. Still, doesn't beat the exhilaration of letting go now and then and feeling like the king of the cats. (As for taking the "proper functioning of democracy" seriously, Broder was proposing only last year that Obama might "orchestrate a showdown with the mullahs" to juice up the economy and win re-election, the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan apparently lost on him.)
I've never understood the point of writing if you're going to hold back and suppress one whole side of your thoughts and observations under a sofa pillow. Clearly for Broder the fun to be had was on the campaign trail, "chatting up the faithful" and collecting foibles, because fun isn't a word one would ever associate with his writing. He covered politics with politesse, which is why you never felt the force of awareness in his writing that he understood or wanted to communicate how power truly works in this country, and who wields it, and how.
Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/03/lloyd-grove-has-a-fond.html
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