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David Brooks

David Brooks charged with battery. by: Compound F Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 17:51:25 PST I'm pretty sure David Brooks spends the majority of his time unplugged and lifeless in a mop closet at the NYT.  A couple times a week a custodian shoves some D cells up his ass, which boots Brooks into a quasi life-like artificial intelligence to mechanically crank out a column as the totally fucking inept protocol droid for the Washington elite he is.  I mean, there are mindless blatherers, and there are mindless blatherers.  David Brooks is the latter.  I once read a Brooks column to a potted plant, and it jumped out the window.  Reading his "thoughts" is like being flashed by a middle-aged man who looks a lot like David Brooks. Writing from the context of complete closeted oblivion, Brooks examines the ontological question of why harmful robots like him exist in a meritocracy, and his lack of self-awareness explodes in a bifurcation of chaos.  This bionic op-ed appliance has so many design flaws you can hear the components popping and snapping and sizzling before he attempts to rub the first two wires together. One of the great achievements of modern times is that we have made society more fair. Snap, pop, sizzle.  The dude shorts out.  Reflections on being, BZZZT.  I believe the rest of the column resulted from his wrecked parts thrashing and slumping on to the keyboard. At least his editor ran it through the spell-check before publishing it. Discuss :: (10 Comments)

BoBo offers HIS grandparents to ice floes! by: Compound F Tue Feb 02, 2010 at 07:25:38 PST ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) David Brooks is a strange animal.  In today's column, he asks his elders to either forego their pensions due to their heretofore unrecognized elderly capacities, or he's asking them to go die on an ice floe.   I'm not sure which. First, I had no idea David Brooks was an ontogeneticist.  The Times must pay him a pretty penny for all of his untold scholarship.  No wonder they are going broke.  As this century's Piaget of the elderly, Brooks tells us that all previous thinking and research about the elderly is bunk.  Dr. Brooks informs us that instead of being accurately characterized as a general functional decline, old age is positively bursting with juvenile alacrity that finds its greatest happiness in service to the young (and social hermaphroditism?), the "generativity" of which creates its own happiness.  Sweet and comforting narrative, Dr.     However, there are political "downsides" to elders, namely that the happy-go-lucky, adept old-timers are meanwhile taking money, freedom, and opportunity away from the youngsters, like the agile, alert, and knowing fucking geezers that they are! The odd thing is that when you turn to political life, we are living in an age of reverse-generativity. Far from serving the young, the old are now taking from them. First, they are taking money. According to Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution, the federal government now spends $7 on the elderly for each $1 it spends on children. Second, they are taking freedom. In 2009, for the first time in American history, every single penny of federal tax revenue went to pay for mandatory spending programs, according to Eugene Steuerle of the Urban Institute. As more money goes to pay off promises made mostly to the old, the young have less control. Third, they are taking opportunity. For decades, federal spending has hovered around 20 percent of G.D.P. By 2019, it is forecast to be at 25 percent and rising. The higher tax rates implied by that spending will mean less growth and fewer opportunities. Already, pension costs in many states are squeezing education spending. In the private sphere, in other words, seniors provide wonderful gifts to their grandchildren, loving attention that will linger in young minds, providing support for decades to come. In the public sphere, they take it away. Old people are truly the fork against humanity: good on one tine, bad, bad, bad on the other.  You think government can help?  Forget it, says Dave.  The old folks should start a spontaneous political movement to make the "unthinkable" "thinkable." It now seems clear that the only way the U.S. is going to avoid an economic crisis is if the oldsters take it upon themselves to arise and force change. The young lack the political power. Only the old can lead a generativity revolution - millions of people demanding changes in health care spending and the retirement age to make life better for their grandchildren. In short, the elderly are okay people, but they are fucking net takers! David Brooks will be escorting his grandparents out to the ice floe later this afternoon, for ritual, mutually beneficial parracide.  Dave will make a buck, and his elderly kin will feel good knowing they helped. Discuss :: (11 Comments)

The Gray Lady by: ek hornbeck Mon May 19, 2008 at 12:10:25 PDT The NYT's latest Kristol embarrassment by Glenn Greenwald, Salon Monday May 19, 2008 12:47 EDT The NYT should be very proud of itself. Of course, Kristol was hired at the NYT because his dad, Irv, was really good friends with former NYT Executive Editor Abe Rosenthal, whose son, Andy, currently runs the NYT Op-Ed page. Andy and Bill followed in their dad's footsteps by becoming good friends (and in every other sense), and Andy then hired his friend, Bill (son of his dad's friend), as the new NYT Op-Ed writer. So this is typically what one gets -- and deserves -- when driven by nepotistic impulse. Rosenthal actually claimed when he hired Kristol that he did so to achieve "balance" and to create diversity on the Op-Ed page. Indeed. Last Monday, Kristol's column compared Americans who don't want to fight for Israel to Neville Chamberlain appeasers. Then, on Wednesday, Tom Friedman declared a "cold war" whereby Israel and the U.S. fight together (along with Sunni Arab dictators) against Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. Then, on Friday, David Brooks declared Obama suspect when it comes to hating Hezbollah enough, writing that Obama's statements bear "the whiff of what President Bush described yesterday as appeasement" and that "if Obama believes all this, he's not just a Jimmy Carter-style liberal. He's off in Noam Chomskyland." Obama then had to call Brooks, demonstrate his commitment to hating Hezbollah, and was cleared by Brooks (for now) of the charge of insufficient devotion to fighting Israel's enemies. Discuss :: (4 Comments)

Obama, Brooks, and Lebanon by: Jay Elias Fri May 16, 2008 at 01:13:34 PDT ( - promoted by buhdydharma ) Today's New York Times features a column by David Brooks wherein Brooks claims that Obama's statements about the current violence in Lebanon, "has the whiff of what President Bush described yesterday as appeasement."  The statement which Brooks feels has that whiff is: It's time to engage in diplomatic efforts to help build a new Lebanese consensus that focuses on electoral reform, an end to the current corrupt patronage system, and the development of the economy that provides for a fair distribution of services, opportunities and employment. Leaving aside the question as to whether or not that would actually appease Hezbollah in some way (I would contend that Hezbollah is plenty enthusiastic about corrupt patronage systems and unfair distribution of goods and services, merely wishing that they be in charge of the corruption and unfair distribution), let's focus for a moment on what is actually happening in Lebanon, and what Obama is saying should be done about it by the United States. There's More... :: (4 Comments, 842 words in story)

Holy Shit - David Brooks makes a good point! by: Jay Elias Fri Jan 04, 2008 at 02:32:33 PST I never thought I'd see the day, but David Brooks just made a point that made me slap my head and wonder why it didn't occur to me before.  I dunno how he did it. Brooks: And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No? I don't see that many will.  I don't see how they can.  I thought the story from here was going to be "How will Obama blow it?"  But what I see coming is different, after reading those words.  The good story, and the only one nearly anyone can get away with, is the coronation of an American legend-to-be.  And if that is true, then the Obama campaign we've all maligned is actually a work of brilliance.  Because he hasn't said anything that can really offend anyone.  Who wants to speak out against hope, against unity, against healing divides, much less to do so against a candidate whose very candidacy is a testament to the kind of progress this nation has made? Indeed, is this displayed in any way better than by the pathetic nature of Paul Krugman's swipe at Obama in his column today?  (As an aside, I am taking great satisfaction in watching Krugman's unraveling as a columnist, which is clearly a result of the loss of his dispassionate eye for the truth as an economist which got him the gig in the first place.)  How, after today, can you possibly see anyone truly getting away with going after Barack Obama as "shallow"?  If he is shallow, then the entire American mythos is shallow (which may well be true, but not something anyone in politics can sell). It is a dirty game, and I have no doubt that Sen. Clinton can play it as well as anyone.  But I'm having a hard time seeing how she can take Obama down. (With the caveat that while all of this is somewhat interesting, I still don't believe it particularly matters.) Discuss :: (11 Comments)

Herbert Must Reading Today by: Armando Tue Nov 13, 2007 at 06:43:24 PST Bob Herbert provides must reading today, especially for Brad DeLong, Andrew Sullivan, Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias, Brendan Nyhan, and of course, David Brooks. Herbert writes: Andrew would not survive very long. On June 21, one day after his arrival, he and fellow activists Michael Schwerner and James Chaney disappeared. Their bodies wouldn’t be found until August. All had been murdered, shot to death by whites enraged at the very idea of people trying to secure the rights of African-Americans. The murders were among the most notorious in American history. They constituted Neshoba County’s primary claim to fame when Reagan won the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1980. The case was still a festering sore at that time. Some of the conspirators were still being protected by the local community. And white supremacy was still the order of the day. That was the atmosphere and that was the place that Reagan chose as the first stop in his general election campaign. The campaign debuted at the Neshoba County Fair in front of a white and, at times, raucous crowd of perhaps 10,000, chanting: “We want Reagan! We want Reagan!” Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, “I believe in states’ rights.” . . . Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon. Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew. And while I expect nothing better from Brooks, Nyhan and Sullivan, I do expect better from people like Drum and Yglesias. And maybe now DeLong sees some value in Herbert's work. Discuss :: (11 Comments)

Wishful thinking would be the kindest way to characterize it by: andgarden Tue Nov 13, 2007 at 04:58:13 PST Today Bob Herbert takes his whack at the "Ronald Reagan didn't use racist tactics" piñata. He scores a  direct hit: To see Reagan's appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like "states' rights" in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.'s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency. Ronald Reagan was an absolute master at the use of symbolism. It was one of the primary keys to his political success. The suggestion that the Gipper didn't know exactly what message he was telegraphing in Neshoba County in 1980 is woefully wrong-headed. Wishful thinking would be the kindest way to characterize it. Thank you Bob Herbert and Paul Krugman. Shame on you David Brooks. Discuss :: (2 Comments)

Paul Krugman: David Brooks is a liar by: andgarden Sat Nov 10, 2007 at 22:24:16 PST So we all know that David Brooks is an idiot. We also know that he's a liar. But it's unusual to hear about it from "serious" figures in the SCLM. Paul Krugman is actually a serious person--in that his brain hasn't decomposed into lima bean paste. He's been in a back-and-forth with the the adjacent liar, Brooks, over the question of whether or not Ronald Reagan used racist campaign tactics. Krugman's smack down response? It was all just an innocent mistake: There's More... :: (6 Comments, 206 words in story)

The Despicable David Brooks by: Armando Fri Nov 09, 2007 at 07:27:11 PST Yep. He did. And he says Kevin Drum agrees with him. Oh, Brooks starts by the standard unsourced argument that Ronald Reagan really did not mean to send a message to white Southerners on civil rights when he gave a speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi where defense of "states rights" figured prominently. He calls those of us, including his colleague Bob Herbert, purveyors of a "heinous conspiracy theory."  But the truth is Brooks has been a pernicious, mendacious apologist for the GOP throughout his career and this is no different. Brooks provides NO evidence to buttress his claims. Indeed the version he provides buttresses the argument that the Philadelphia speech was in fact an exercise in dogwhistle politics in the Deep South: Lou Cannon of The Washington Post reported at the time that this schedule reflected a shift in Republican strategy. Some inside the campaign wanted to move away from the Southern strategy used by Nixon, believing there were more votes available in the northern suburbs and among working-class urban voters. But there was another event going on that week, the Neshoba County Fair, seven miles southwest of Philadelphia. The Neshoba County Fair was a major political rallying spot in Mississippi (Michael Dukakis would campaign there in 1988). Mississippi was a state that Republican strategists hoped to pick up. They’d recently done well in the upper South, but they still lagged in the Deep South, where racial tensions had been strongest. Jimmy Carter had carried Mississippi in 1976 by 14,000 votes. So the decision was made to go to Neshoba. Exactly who made the decision is unclear. The campaign was famously disorganized, and Cannon reported: “The Reagan campaign’s hand had been forced to some degree by local announcement that he would go to the fair.” Reagan’s pollster Richard Wirthlin urged him not to go, but Reagan angrily countered that once the commitment had been made, he couldn’t back out. Well, that settles it no? Sheesh. Brooks ACCEPTS that Nixon ran a Southern Strategy, ACCEPTS that the Reagan campaign was looking to make inroads in the Deep South against the Southerner Carter and even accepts that: You can look back on this history in many ways. It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase “states’ rights” in any context in Philadelphia. Reagan could have done something wonderful if he’d mentioned civil rights at the fair. He didn’t. And it’s obviously true that race played a role in the G.O.P.’s ascent. So this is the "evidence" that absolves the Reagan campaign? This is what allows a man with a history of mendacity to slur people like his colleague Herbert as "heinous?" Oh and what of the evidence that Brooks ignores? Like this: Ronald Reagan on the subject of welfare. He cited a Chicago "Welfare Queen" who had ripped off $150,000 from the government, using 80 aliases, 30 addresses, a dozen social security cards, and four fictional dead husbands. The country was outraged; Reagan dutifully promised to roll back welfare; and ever since, the "Welfare Queen" driving her "Welfare Cadillac" has become permanently lodged in American political folklore. Unfortunately, like most great conservative anecdotes, it wasn't really true. The media searched for this welfare cheat in the hopes of interviewing her, and discovered that she didn't even exist. As a bit of class warfare, however, it was brilliant. . . . Except in was not class warfare only. It was mainly RACE warfare. And this: Ronald Reagan was key to the South's transition to Republican politics. Goldwater got the ball rolling, but Reagan was at his side from the very beginning. During the 1964 campaign, Reagan gave speeches in support of Goldwater and spoke out for what he called individual rights -- read that also as states' rights. Reagan also and portrayed any opposition as support for totalitarianism -- read that as communism. In 1976, Reagan sought the Republican nomination against the incumbent President Gerald Ford. Reagan's campaign was on the ropes until the primaries hit the Southern states, where he won his first key victory in North Carolina. Throughout the South that spring and summer, Reagan portrayed himself as Goldwater's heir while criticizing Ford as a captive of Eastern establishment Republicans fixated on forced integration. . . . After he defeated President Carter, a native Southerner, Reagan led an administration that seemed to cater to Southerners still angry over the passage of the Civil Rights Act after 16 years. The Reagan team condemned busing for school integration, opposed affirmative action and even threatened to veto a proposed extension of the Voting Rights Act (the sequel to the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed a year later and focused on election participation). President Reagan also tried to allow Bob Jones University, a segregated Southern school, to reclaim federal tax credits that had long been denied to racially discriminatory institutions. Of course this is just a sample of what Reagan said and did on race issues throughout his political career. But Brooks would have it that the Phildelphia, Mississippi speech was NOT intended to be consistent with Reagan's entire political history. It was just an accidental bit of "callousness." David Brooks has been a mendacious and despicable charcter in our political discourse for many years now. But this column today sinks him to a new low. Discuss :: (19 Comments)