Bobo marginalized, but still part of his party

I've had one or two friends lately claim that David Brooks is close to jumping ship on the GOP and joining the Democratic party. This is why that will never happen. At the end of the day, American politics are still about haves and have-nots (in both the economic and political senses). Either you believe:

1. that the world and the free market are fundamentally just, that people are where they are because they chose to be there, and that, as Dr. Phil once said, "there are no victims, only volunteers," or


2. that life isn't fair, that some people have an inside track to success and guard their privilege jealously, and that someone has to look after the weak because it sure as hell won't be profit-driven companies and bosses.

Brooks may believe in evolution and climate change, and he may have gay friends, but at the end of the day, he's just an old Tory who thinks people are rich because they're better people.

lobbyists

Greenwald combines several of my favorite things: decrying the very practice of lobbying, accusing the media of complicity, and trashing David Brooks. The Moyers Journal episode he references (the one with him and Jay Rosen) was very good, too.

David Brooks goes way, way off message

What the hell is going on?

David Brooks, champion of the Common Man

From Kagro X @dKos:

How big of a douchebag is David Brooks?

He's such a big douchebag that he tries to criticize Barack Obama as not being an oh-so-regular guy (just like the tortoise shell spectacled and pink necktied drip Brooks is, of course) by saying:

[H]e doesn‘t seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee‘s salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there.

Only problem? David Brooks has apparently never stepped out of the limo and actually gone into an Applebees. Because they don't have salad bars.

Ouch.

When do you think any of these major media pundits will notice that bad things happen when they try to flash their "regular guy" credentials? Is there any profession with such pervasive delusions of austerity?

a replacement column for David Brooks

Presidential candidates should pick vice presidents who help them with the actual governing part of being a president, since they don't help with winning swing states.

John McCain should pick someone who makes up for his egregious inadequacies as a potential president, the fact that he's beholden to federal lobbyists, his virtually uncontrollable temper which makes him vulnerable to being manipulated in politics, and his relative ignorance and knee-jerk belligerence in matters of foreign policy. To help him with all these very, very many weaknesses, he should pick someone who's younger than him and is known as very virile and healthy man, and someone who knows a lot about being easily manipulated and about the dangers of a warmongering approach to foreign affairs. Whether they're from a swing state does not matter in my criteria, so he should choose George W. Bush.

Barack Obama, meanwhile, should find a VP who can complement so impressive a candidate without too much overlap. He should find someone with a solid military background, someone with government experience but not a lightning rod or a reputation for being highly partisan, preferably a former Republican. The candidate should also be tough and "no nonsense," who conveys the impression that this administration has the big stick (!) that helps so much in political matters. Swing state affiliation doesn't matter, again, so the best candidate for Barack is Jim Webb.

utterly, totally non-partisan column from David Brooks

This week David Brooks is on the subject of VP picks, and the overall thesis of his column is a good one, specifically that vice presidents seem to have much more effect on a president's administration than they do on his campaign.

But here's where David Brooks the nonpartisan sociologist elides seamlessly into David Brooks the right wing apparatchik. According to Brooks, Barack Obama needs a VP who can overcome all his myriad failures, from his inexperience to his naivety to the lack of substance in his strategy to the fact that he can't really bring people together. John McCain, meanwhile, just needs someone who can help him with problems in "the climate" and with other "forces." Don'tcha just love Republican weather metaphors? "There's a lot of partisanship in the air in Washington, and the climate is not conducive to our party getting elected. Nothing that's our fault, of course, it's not like we did anything to tarnish our brand! It's just the weather, ya know, out there." Unlike Barack Obama, the f**kup of the ages, the Crazy Train has no failures or weaknesses, apparently. Just some climactic issues, that's all!

And, of course, once you've bitten through the nonpartisan observer coating with the subtle "Democrats suck worse" flavor, you get to the creamy, concern troll shell, where Brooks genuinely, seriously, without any duplicity or ulterior motives (honest to God!) suggests that Obama, the "change we can believe in" candidate, pick Democratic brahmin has-been and failure Tom Daschle, while John McCain choose rising star, charismatic Tim Pawlenty. Seriously, Brooks says McCain should pick a successful governor with a lot of appeal (from a swing state, mind you), while Obama should pick a former Senate minority leader and partisan lightning rod from a safe GOP state who not only couldn't keep the Democrats on top in the Senate but who failed to hold onto his own seat while he was Minority Leader. Daschle's wife, by the way, is a federal lobbyist, but I'm sure that had nothing to do with Brooks' choice. I mean, it's not like her presence would nullify one of Barack's biggest advantages over McCain.

And the best part: whether the candidates pick Brooks' choices is a way to measure "who is thinking seriously about how to succeed in the White House." Take that, Democrats!

worst. debate. ever.

Thanks, Charlie and George. I was hoping to get another chance to see a bunch of smarmy jackasses with empty lapels grill Barack for leaving his flag pin at home.

The papers weren't too impressed, either. Here's Tom Schales from The Washington Post on Charles Gibson's antics:

Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, "Don't all speak at once."

And on George Stephanopoulos:

He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.

My favorite Stephanopoulos question:

Senator, two questions. Number one, do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?

Are you f**king kidding me?

Andrew Sullivan on the content of the questions:

No questions on the environment, none on terror, none on interrogation, none on torture, none on education, none on spending, none on healthcare, none on Iran ... but four separate questions in the first hour about a lapel-pin, Bitter-gate, Wright-gate and Ayers.

In fact, DHinMI at dKos kept a tally of subjects the moderators never touched in the 2 hours they had with the candidates:

The financial crisis
The collapse of housing values in the US and around the world
Afghanistan
Health care
Torture
The declining value of the US Dollar
Education
Trade
Pakistan
Energy
Immigration
The decline of American manufacturing
The Supreme Court
The burgeoning world food crisis.
Global warming
China
The attacks on organized labor and the working class
Terrorism and al Qaeda
Civil liberties and constraints on government surveillance

We also found out about Charles Gibson's-- and, today, the NYT's Adam Nagourney's-- view that the middle class includes "those making less than $200,000 to $250,000 a year." This means that "middle class" includes people in the top 4% of US households. Put another way, these people would have us believe that households making $25k/year and $250k/year belong in the same wealth class.

This is actually a recurring issue with Gibson. I was reminded today that it was Gibson at another Dem debate at St. Anselm's college earlier this year who said that, if you look at a household with two college professors, you're looking at a household that brings in 200k/year. That question was met with such loud snickers and laughter in the crowd that it led John Edwards to smirk and respond: "I don't think they agree with you."

To put it in perspective, I know a woman who recently landed a tenure-track gig at a major public university in Texas. She was highly sought after, having turned down an offer from Clemson in the process. Her salary: around $45k. That's slightly more than a typical librarian's salary. In some cases, professors make less than K-12 teachers.

Guess who thought ABC's questions were "excellent?"

David Brooks.

there's always an agenda

Sometimes people ask me why I don't like David Brooks' columns. "He seems like a reasonable Republican," they tell me. Aside from his, shall we say, revisionist take on his own opinions once they're found to be wrong/stupid/unpopular, my problem with Brooks is that he's an active moving part of the conservative media machine, of Clinton's "vast right wing conspiracy": I firmly believe that virtually every column he writes is in the service of the Republican agenda, and written specifically to further the needs of the national Republican party. Timothy Noah once referred to him as "the right's ambassador to the liberal establishment," and I think that's a pretty good characterization. I don't like Brooks because his bias is the most insidious kind.

Take this week's column, for example. Reading it in a bubble, it sounds like Brooks really is my kind of conservative. He actually cares about the plight of working class people losing their jobs, and has even thought about it enough to speak somewhat intelligently about the reasons why their jobs are disappearing! And good on him for taking a presidential candidate to account for relying on the same old boogeymen instead of talking about root causes!

But wait, I then think to myself, it's a funny coincidence that the Republicans have decided that they'd rather run against Clinton than Obama, and that the longer it takes for Obama to put the race away, the better the chances for McCain in November. And wow, Brooks has become an advocate of the workin' man just in time to write a strikingly venomous column against Obama (and he even references the "bitter" controversy)... one week before the Pennsylvania primary, the biggest one left! And it is just damn coincidental that Pennsylvania is filled to the brim with laid off industrial workers! And how about that: that's exactly the group Clinton and Obama are fighting over in this last week! And come to think of it, the Clinton campaign and the Republicans in tandem have been focusing their message on the charge of "elitism" (i.e., anti-working class) against Obama for about a week now!

Imagine that.

Being a pundit means never having to say you're sorry

David Brooks: if conservatives had all been "centrist" like I say I am these last 5 years, and not advocating the stuff I was advocating, they'd still be in power.

Of course, David Brooks is a respected pundit, which apparently means he's given carte blanche to pretend like he didn't argue forcefully for us to go into Iraq, or concoct a speech for Bush arguing that we should "spread democracy" now, and we can change Middle Eastern society in 20 years, or defend warantless wiretapping, or dissemble on l'Affair Schiavo while calling the "moral high ground" for the Christian Right.