Glenn Greenwald: The remaining GOP base -- the 30%'ers and the Broder/Ignatius pundit

David Broder and David Ignatius both have excellent columns in this morning's Washington Post -- excellent because of how vividly they illustrate the shallowness and dishonesty for our opinion-making elite. Impressively, even though the two columns are ostensibly about completely different topics -- Broder writes about how terrible and self-destructive Congressional Democrats are being because they are too uncooperative and partisan (seriously) while Ignatius writes about the heroic efforts the Bush administration is undertaking to avoid war with Iran (seriously) -- they are actually identical both in their tactics and their "substance."

Both columns do nothing, literally, beyond mindlessly repeating what Bush loyalists have told them -- in Broder's case, the whole column simply recites what was told to him by RCCC Chair Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, and in Igantius's case, he does nothing but uncritically repeat what unnamed "senior administration officials" whispered into his grateful, flattered ear. There is not a critical thought expressed about any of it. Like the obedient puppets that they are, they simply adopt what they are told as their own opinions and then write it all down.