Bozell Column: David Brooks, You're Fired
Conservatives who really wanted to see at least a spending “haircut” for NPR or public broadcasting in the underwhelming budget deal for 2011 might have suggested at least some symbolic victory for conservatives. Here it is: Fire David Brooks as the alleged conservative or Republican “counterpoint” on PBS and NPR on Friday nights. We could hire Donald Trump to announce it from the boardroom.
Or keep him, but banish forever, for once and for all, the notion that he is a man of the Right.
After President Obama’s budget speech at George Washington University, Brooks wrote a column for The New York Times declaring: “It doesn't take a genius to see that Obama is very likely to be re-elected.” Republicans may try to reform entitlements, but “voters, even Republican voters, reject this.” Obama “hit the political sweet spot with his speech this week. He made a sincere call to reduce debt, which will please independents, but he did not specify any tough choices.”
Forget for a minute how cynical that sounds: the “genius” makes vague promises of spending reductions while in reality he delivers the greatest deficits in history – by far. Forget about the how the speech has actually played in America: his Gallup approval rating dropped to 41 percent, with a 35 percent approval from independents. The new ABC/Washington Post poll finds 55 percent disapproval of Obama from independents.
Let’s just focus on how Brooks aims to please his bosses at the New York Times – and let’s not forget his check-signers at NPR and PBS. What results is the usual rigged liberal point-and-point, instead of a point-counterpoint.
On Friday’s “All Things Considered,” NPR anchor Robert Siegel began, “David Brooks, it is still a long way until November 6th, 2012, but you effectively called the election for Barack Obama.” Brooks joked: “I'm going to sleep. It's all over.” Siegel and E.J. Dionne, the liberal half of NPR’s Friday pundit duo, laughed.
How very....grand...it all is.
There was no criticism for Obama on this panel, just talk of his mastery. Brooks also said Obama accomplished “I don't know what the trifecta plus one is -- a quad-fecta.” The NPR anchor insisted, “Oh yeah. It was a tetra-fecta.” Brooks added, “It was sort of a master stroke.”
The only sour note Brooks could sound was that Obama sounded partisan. When Dionne insisted Obama whacked Republicans without sounding angry, Brooks demurred: “He did call his opponents un-American. I mean, he did sound like Michele Bachmann at times.” That’s a liberal put-down for you: He sounds like Michele Bachmann.
Then came his weekly chat spot on the “PBS NewsHour,” where once again, Brooks bravely told the PBS executives what they wanted to hear, rehashing his column about how the Republicans are right about the sustainability of entitlements, but Obama was “absolutely right to jump all over the Republicans” and offer a “plan” full of air. Obama was masterful: “I thought, politically, he did a very effective job of demonizing the Republicans, raising the parts of their program that are very unpopular, and then appearing responsible, and maybe putting us on a path to some sort of fiscal responsibility, but not really specifying how.”
This allowed another moment of blissful journalistic levitation for the liberals. Jim Lehrer asked liberal Mark Shields: “Do you agree the president did an effective job?” Shields replied: “I think the president did a remarkable job.”
Brooks insisted, as usual, that there will be need to be shared sacrifice, from the middle class and from senior citizens, to which Lehrer replied: “But the president and Secretary Geithner on this program that same night said, look, if there is going to be deficit reduction, you’re not going to do it without raising taxes.” Brooks agreed that was “absolutely right.”
Republicans were wrong. Lehrer said the Republicans said Obama’s speech was “class warfare, that’s unfair.” Brooks replied: “Yes. And, here, I think they’re wrong. I do think we have to raise taxes on the top 1 percent. I think we have to have a big tax reform that raises revenue.... But you have got to raise revenue across more than just the rich.”
The Lehrer interview wrapped up with Brooks and Shields running down the Republican field for being an incredibly weak field of challengers to President Masterstroke.
Anyone who wonders why conservatives and Republicans are so disgusted with the tilt of public broadcasting (and its sedate, self-satisfied civility) should begin with the notion that David Brooks is “balance.” If liberals weren’t cowards who feared losing TV debates, they’d hire a real conservative to engage in some serious Friday night discussions on PBS and NPR.
- Brent Bozell's blog
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Comments
Oh the irony, Mr. Brooks!
Submitted by metaphorsbwithu on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 11:10pm.
"It doesn't take a genius to see that Obama is very likely to be re-elected.” - David Brooks
And Brooks is no genius.
Oh the irony!
What Do You Call Tony Blankley, Chopped Liver?
Submitted by TheReal7Sticks on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 11:15pm.
As the old saying goes, "If this is how you treat your allies, I shudder to think how you would treat your enemies." 'nuff said.
How is Brooks a Republican again....?
Submitted by NeoKong on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 11:25pm.
Is it the way he gushes over Obama or how he sneers at Michele Bachmann. He is like a political transvestite who doesn't bother to shave. No one is buying it. Can't Congress pass a resolution officially declaring him a Democrat or something....?
"He made a sincere call to
Submitted by jdhawk on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 11:31pm.
"He made a sincere call to reduce debt, which will please independents, but he did not specify any tough choices.” Huh? What a "master stroke" of utter nonsense.
Or this, . . . "then appearing responsible, and maybe putting us on a path to some sort of fiscal responsibility, but not really specifying how.” Huh? What a bunch of crap.
NPR is the "tetra-fecta" of a mutual admiration society of liberals including Brooks.
Speaking of the budget, here is why more taxes will never make what is happening in Washington, D.D. right: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=661pi6K-8WQhu
If Obama fails he looks like an utter fool.
Submitted by Texndoc on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 11:44pm.
History will record there were those who knew he was pure hype from the get go, and those who bought the snake oil.
npr
Submitted by grammajane on Tue, 04/19/2011 - 11:55pm.
Maybe NPR thinks that they need to have at least one person who "claims" he is a Republican on their net-work to keep on being funded by the tax-payers. Brooks is a liberal with his elite, arrogant and 'educated" attitude and remarks. He is very self-centered to think people don't realize his agenda.
Brooks
Submitted by Marsh on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 12:05am.
must have gotten another White House visit.
Breakfast invite and Obama buttered his toast.
Huzzah! The perfectly creased pant has reemerged!
Submitted by lsudolemite on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 12:21am.
Obama continues to do the only thing he's even remotely proficient in, delivering yet another scripted speech to applauding children. Who needs such trifles as actual governing, leadership, and action when you have soaring rhetoric?
Sadly, he may be right about Obama's reelection. Obama may be the single most vulnerable president up for reelection since Jimmy Carter, and the Republicans seem hell-bent on squandering this opportunity.
Amazing, isn't it?
Submitted by ConservaSerb on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 3:49am.
In some circles, all it takes to be a "conservative" is to proclaim yourself one.
An old professor of mine once said . . . "you can paint the letters 'c-o-w' on a horse . . . and the damn thing is still a horse."
Brooks can call himself a "conservative," but he'll always be a horse's ass.
A wise & frugal government, which shall leave men free 2 regulate their own pursuits of industry & improvement, & shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. T. Jefferson
To NPR/PBS Brooks IS a Republican
Submitted by rvail136 on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 6:13am.
you have to look at it from the NPR/PBS point of view. Their world view is so skewed that, to them, Mr. Brook IS A RAVING RIGHT WING CONSERVATIVE. OTH, to the rest of the world, Mr. Brooks is a liberal to moderate centrist...for lack of a better term.
Rich Vail
Pikesville, MD
http://thevailspot.blogspot.com
Rich V.
www.thevailspot.blogspot.com
I have a better term.
Submitted by IdahoJim on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 2:21pm.
But my personal morals forbid me from writing it out loud.
IdahoJim
http://idahoandy.net
It Does Take....
Submitted by GeneralAl on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 6:14am.
"It doesn't take a genius to see that Obama is very likely to be re-elected.”
Nope! A genius would see that he's likely to not be re-elected. It only takes an idiot to proclaim he's "Very likely to be re-elected!' Hey Brook Trout, remember Jimmy?
"Old Soldiers never die, they just fade away"!
David Brooks needed to spend
Submitted by AngryInOhio on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 7:02am.
David Brooks needed to spend some time in "flyover" country before he made the statement on Obama's re-election, he just made himself look stupid.
Wow
Submitted by DontFeedTheTrolls on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 7:25am.
It is amazing to me how powerful White Guilt is. To me, Obama is a dolt, a boooooring speaker (give me Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, root canal, Hillary even!), a serial liar, and just plain awful to listen to, but the white 'elites' just fall all over themselves praising him. I don't get it. He and his policies are just terrible and it is like his followers are blind. Please, Republicans, put up a winnable candidate!
To Liberals David Brooks is a conservative
Submitted by richb313 on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 7:29am.
To liberals David Brooks is a conservative so anyone to the right of him, like the majority of the country, must be radical right wing gun toting extermeist. That is how they think of most of the country. In truth Mr. Brooks represents the Elite Republican who has been to all the right schools and is ok to invite to cocktail parties. It is these types of Republicans that Ronald Reagan had to overcome to win the nomination. President Reagan also had to watch his back in office from these very same turncoats while in office.
When the center is defined by the extreme then the center becomes the extreme.
Obama's re-election - the same old same old - NOT
Submitted by acaiguana on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 7:55am.
I reject this concept of the ruling class. Obama is definitely not on track for re-election hence the disparate attempt to make this the accepted 'herd mentality' of the political landscape for the 2012 elections.
This accepted outcome for 2012 has been the underpinning of the MSM for some time now; resulting in ragging on about how 'weak' the Republican field is showing itself.
The Republican field is 1) not weak or 2) doomed to failure because of its radical elements.
If this were true Obama would never have been elected to start.
Obama was clearly a radical and continues to be a radical. Pelosi and Reid are radical and continue to be radical, but of course the lesson from the 2010 elections was that one can marginalize even the most stupid and voracious radical (heard from Nancy lately?).
We need to marginalize all of the Socialist Democrats and we need to keep hammering on about their wacky ideas about math, the economy, labor, unions, the environment and the direction of the country.
It is the Democrats who are kooky and radical and it is their playbook to accuse their opponents as behaving in a mirror image of their own practices.
Let there be no doubt or faltering the the face of our futures. We must purge the government of these Left wing kooks.
ACA
...
Quoted from: 'Acaiguana notes from the Underground' (Soon to be at theaters near you)
Brooks obsessed with Obama's pants
Submitted by Slyrr on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 9:09am.
Brooks was, is, and always will be nothing more than some jerk the NYT hired to say he's a conservative, while vomiting libutard talking points. That way they could project the false masque that 'conservatives' agree with Democrat/libutard philosophies. He's nothing but a libutard ventriloquist dummy, with Obama's hand jammed firmly up his tuckus, making him dance with every twitch of his fingers.
He never had any cred with me. And in my mind he will forever be the fool who claimed that Obama was qualified to 'rule the world' based on nothing more than the fact that his pants were creased.
Why the liberals are so obsessed with Obama's pants is anyone's guess. I believe Brook's fawning obsession with Obama was once referred to as a 'bromance'. Put that in context with his slobbering desire for Obama's pants and draw your own conclusions.
They conveniently forget
Submitted by Model850 on Wed, 04/20/2011 - 4:34pm.
"He made a sincere call to reduce debt..."
How quickly they forget (not really; they just ignore the fact) that no such "sincere call" was included in dear leader's first 2012 budget submitted last Valentine's Day.
Hmmm. I wonder why.
Oh yeah, because he isn't interested in reducing the debt. He was backed into a corner by Paul Ryan -- the real adult in the room -- and had to back-pedal furiously to save face.
What a putz. Brooks, AND Obama.
edit - Fixed embarrassing typo in subject line : ^ (