David Broder, a longtime writer and columnist for the Washington Post, passed away today due to complications from diabetes.

Broder, who began his journalism career as a reporter with Congressional Quarterly and the New York Times, was more well-known over the past couple decades as a columnist with the Washington Post. The phrase “Broderism” became a signifier in the blogosphere for a certain type of self-regarding faux-centrism which always seemed to side with deficit peacocks over everyone else, and defaulted to the position that the midpoint between any two issues was always the wisest course.

Broder’s book “The System,” about the failure of the Clinton health care plan in the 1990s, is actually a highly regarded work. But for many years, he seemed to have been writing the same column over and over, attacking the extremes of political debate in favor of the sensible center.

Nevertheless, Broder had a very strong pull on national politics, and was considered within Washington as the dean of the national press corps. So his death changes that landscape, however subtly.

RIP.