Reality Check

In his latest column, WaPo troll David Broder thrills to the strains of Senator Huckleberry Graham, "[a] Republican with a notable record of independence," dissing Democrats on Iraq before calling for another half an FU:

..."I am sick and tired of people posing choices between the two extremes; I want reality-based policy. [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid is as bad as Rumsfeld was in rejecting reality. He said in April that the war is lost, and he refuses to accept anything else."...

"What we do can affect the outcome. But if we don't see progress on two of the three big issues -- oil revenues, de-Baathification, provincial elections -- in the next 90 days, it may not happen. And Iraq could be a failed state."

Despite the president's words [presumably in endorsing "the Petraeus-Crocker plan for Iraq"], that sounds realistic.

Over at this morning's NY Times, Frank Rich has a different take on "reality" and the Democrats' failure on Iraq:

Mr. Bush, confident that he got away with repackaging the same bankrupt policies with a nonsensical new slogan ("Return on Success") Thursday night, is counting on the public's continued apathy as he kicks the can down the road and bides his time until Jan. 20, 2009; he, after all, has nothing more to lose. The job for real leaders is to wake up America to the urgent reality. We can't afford to punt until Inauguration Day in a war that each day drains America of resources and will. Our national security can't be held hostage indefinitely to a president's narcissistic need to compound his errors rather than admit them.

Question for David Broder: why doesn't this column make Frank Rich a "centrist"?

Update: ending changed for clarity.

Update 2: Media Matters has more on the nonsense of the Broder column.