Credit Where Credit Is Due

In his column today, David Broder critiques his 2005 punditry, and takes responsibility for what he considers to be one of his biggest misses:

On Sept. 4, I published a column so wildly off target that it could have gotten me indicted by a special prosecutor. It was written in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as President Bush was flying back from vacation to organize the federal response to that catastrophe.

Without waiting for him to actually do anything, I saluted his performance, leading off with the assertion that "it took almost no time for President Bush to put his stamp on the national response to the tragedy that has befallen New Orleans and the Gulf Coast."

I think Broder is being a little hard on himself here. I mean, as we all witnessed, Bush did put his special "stamp" on the response. We see more clearly now, of course, that Bush's stamp is a mix of incompetence and cronyism, but take some credit, Mr. Broder — strictly speaking, you got this one right.