David Brooks, the "House Conservative" of the New York Times, should seriously consider putting his self-description as "conservative" in quotes at all times in order to comply with truth in packaging. I mean how conservative can you be when liberal sources are quoting you favorably, especially when you sound like, without quite saying so, you are endorsing Barack Obama? The liberal New Republic cites Brooks favorably for his almost endorsement of The One:
Has David Brooks Endorsed Obama?
Not in so many words, but please continue:
Well, not exactly. After all, he has one paragraph in his column in Friday's Times in which he speculates that Obama might be reticent, stand-offish, ineffectual.
The rest is a well thought-out and (as usual) elegantly written argument for Obama's character as a portend of an intelligent and considered presidency. It's not only that the economy will protect against wild supplemental spending. Obama, Brooks argues, is not a crusader. He measures ideas by the likeliness of their progressive effect.
Here is the David Brooks Obama acclamation column that The New Republic Editor, Marty Peretz, cites so favorably (emphasis):
We’ve been watching Barack Obama for two years now, and in all that time there hasn’t been a moment in which he has publicly lost his self-control. This has been a period of tumult, combat, exhaustion and crisis. And yet there hasn’t been a moment when he has displayed rage, resentment, fear, anxiety, bitterness, tears, ecstasy, self-pity or impulsiveness.
How about when he impulsively revealed his share the wealth plan to Joe the Plumber? We return you now to the New York Times "House Conservative" polishing Obama's halo:
Some candidates are motivated by something they lack. For L.B.J., it was respect. For Bill Clinton, it was adoration. These politicians are motivated to fill that void. Their challenge once in office is self-regulation. How will they control the demons, insecurities and longings that fired their ambitions?
But other candidates are propelled by what some psychologists call self-efficacy, the placid assumption that they can handle whatever the future throws at them. Candidates in this mold, most heroically F.D.R. and Ronald Reagan, are driven upward by a desire to realize some capacity in their nature. They rise with an unshakable serenity that is inexplicable to their critics and infuriating to their foes.
Obama has the biography of the first group but the personality of the second. He grew up with an absent father and a peripatetic mother. “I learned long ago to distrust my childhood,” he wrote in “Dreams From My Father.” This is supposed to produce a politician with gaping personal needs and hidden wounds.
But over the past two years, Obama has never shown evidence of that. Instead, he has shown the same untroubled self-confidence day after day.
In the middle of throwing himself at Obama's feet while screaming, "We are not worthy!!!" perhaps Brooks should ponder why, if Obama is so self-confident, he is taking potshots at Joe the Plumber. The Adoration of The One continues:
There has never been a moment when, at least in public, he seems gripped by inner turmoil. It’s not willpower or self-discipline he shows as much as an organized unconscious. Through some deep, bottom-up process, he has developed strategies for equanimity, and now he’s become a homeostasis machine.
...They say we are products of our environments, but Obama, the sojourner, seems to go through various situations without being overly touched by them. Over the past two years, he has been the subject of nearly unparalleled public worship, but far from getting drunk on it, he has become less grandiloquent as the campaign has gone along.
When Bill Clinton campaigned, he tried to seduce his audiences. But at Obama rallies, the candidate is the wooed not the wooer. He doesn’t seem to need the audience’s love. But they need his. The audiences hunger for his affection, while he is calm, appreciative and didactic.
Sheesh! Keep in mind that this is a supposed "House Conservative" practically announcing Obama's heavenly accension. Oh yeah, there was that one minor caveat that Brooks had about Obama that Peretz mentioned. And, believe me, it is very minor:
He doesn’t have F.D.R.’s joyful nature or Reagan’s happy outlook, but he is analytical. That’s why this William Ayers business doesn’t stick. He may be liberal, but he is never wild. His family is bourgeois. His instinct is to flee the revolutionary gesture in favor of the six-point plan.
Real critical there, Brooks. And the reason why the "William Ayers business" (like bombing buildings) doesn't stick is that most of the press today are far more interested in digging up dirt on Joe the Plumber than investigating Obama's ties with Bill the Bomber.
This adulation of Obama by the "House Conservative" shouldn't be too surprising. Brooks has been performing the service of pretending to be "conservative" while slamming conservatives for at least a year. As we saw a few days ago, the one "conservative" in the PBS post-debate lineup was one David Brooks who, as NewsBusters Tim Graham reported, joined the liberals on the "Murderer's Row" panel in slamming McCain:
David Brooks, the increasingly fraudulent "conservative," who effusively praised Obama for being grand and calm "like a redwood forest," a "source of comfort," while McCain "seemed tight" and "hard to live with for four years," and who ended up the night announcing McCain would lose. (UPDATE: On Charlie Rose later, Brooks decided Obama was so cool he was "a mountain.")
The New York Times "House Conservative" seems to know his place. Pretend to be a "conservative" while advancing the liberal agenda of getting Obama elected (along with slamming Rush Limbaugh). Should the "House Conservative" veer from that path, he will find his invites to exclusive Manhattan parties, where they probably now express "strange new respect" for Brooks, dry up along, perhaps, with his job.
—P.J. Gladnick is a freelance writer and creator of the DUmmie FUnnies blog.
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it's all relative
October 18, 2008 - 11:09 ET by sawing battawithin the context of the Upper West Side cocktail party circuit, Brooks is probably a 'conservative'...but within the context of the USA, not so much.
Like Washington DC changes politicians, NYC changes conservatives....time to take back the country from NYC/DC/SF/detroit/chicago, etc...look what a marvelous job liberalism has done in those towns...the difference between the corruption of NYC 20 yrs ago and Detroit today is the elimination of pure, unbridled liberalism...enter Rudy.
Brooks is just hedging so he isnt persona non grata at these cocktail parties in NYC for the next 8 years. SELLOUT.
Vote (R) for Real change.
The David Gergen Republican
October 18, 2008 - 11:34 ET by allanf"David Gergen Republicans" can reap both praise and financial reward working for elite Eastern media outfits.
If you want to go to the "in" parties, be quoted in liberal periodicals and make lots of cash, than be the "House Republican". You are the go to guy liberals can turn to when they need to say "even Republicans don't (fill in the blank) "
Why just last night, Gergen was bashing Sarah Palin along with Ed Henry and Anderson Cooper. At first Blush Cooper had a balanced panel with two Republicans and two Democrats. Yet only Bay Buchanan was defending Palin. And Bay broke with the Republican party years ago.
Well Bay Buchanan is a
October 18, 2008 - 15:20 ET by motherbeltWell Bay Buchanan is a conservative, not a Republican.
Yeah I would trust Buchanan
October 18, 2008 - 16:08 ET by mostlymoderateYeah I would trust Buchanan over just about anybody we have in the GOP right now. This country needs more leaders like Buchanan.
New Republic 2007: David Brooks delusional for pro-Obama worship
October 18, 2008 - 11:29 ET by Jack BauerThat's quite funny, because on 12/19/07, a major liberal rag slammed BOTH Brooks and Obama for their self-fulfilling delusional reasoning.
And that would have also been: THE NEW REPUBLIC.
Let’s paraphrase. Last year The New Repulic called Brooks DELUSIONAL for adoring Obama. This year they approve.
So who's delusional, again? Talk about schizophrenia
Wouldn't You Know it
October 18, 2008 - 11:39 ET by allanfWouldn't you know it. When the Times finally hires a conservative he turns out to be a liberal.
Let this be a warning to you Bill Kristol!!! You will turn into the Tucker Carlson of the New York Times if you try to hard to ingratiate yourself. Bill, becoming a liberal will not win liberals are over to conservatism.
Brooks is just another
October 18, 2008 - 15:22 ET by motherbeltBrooks is just another "even conservative."
When the Times finally hires a conservative he turns out to be a liberal.
No kidding. That's why they hate "labels" as they say.
Just like the media's perpetual prescription for Republican success is: Be more like Democrats.
mb,1974 called, They
October 18, 2008 - 15:28 ET by Chris Normanmb,
1974 called. They want their "conservative" columnist back.
McNotObama '08
Brooks looks and talks like
October 18, 2008 - 11:41 ET by mostlymoderateBrooks looks and talks like your typical San Francisco liberal. To say he is conservative is to be a liar.
The O also stands for
October 18, 2008 - 11:53 ET by zhombreThe O also stands for obsequious and Brooks certainly appears ready to rally under that banner. In 1992 I recall a Clinton-Gore Suck-Up watch in The New Republic. The Apotheosis of Barack and the Great Obasm exceeds the exultation accorded the Two Bubbas. Wow, do we live in an age of wonders or not?
O stands for
October 18, 2008 - 11:56 ET by TheAssessorOsshole .. it's kind of an elitist thing
Barak 0bama - Afraction American
"Brooks has been performing
October 18, 2008 - 12:14 ET by TE"Brooks has been performing the service of pretending to be 'conservative' while slamming conservatives for at least a year."
Actually Brooks and PBS have pretended that Brooks is a "conservative" from the first day that Brooks assumed the David Gergen chair for non-conservative, non-Republicans on Jim Lehrer's show. I haven't watched Lehrer's show in several years. I could only handle the first 100,000,000 responses from Brooks to the latest, utter leftist idiocy from Mark Shields that he (i.e., Brooks) "agree[s] with Mark." 100,000,001 "I agree with Mark" responses from Brooks would have been too much for me to handle.
F********* David Brooks
October 18, 2008 - 12:30 ET by ConLosRepublicanosNoF*** David Brooks he is no consevative, its laughable that he keeps saying he is a consevative when he is not. No consevative likes socialism and thats basically what Obama is. If a conservative endorses Obama he is not conservative.
Oh, I'm not one of THOSE conservatives.
October 18, 2008 - 12:36 ET by pbthinkerIf Brooks hasn't figured out Obama yet, there is little hope on the NY Times. If he can't look at that newsroom and see everyone in the tank, dayin and dayout, there is little hope on the NY Times. Of course, why would the Times have him around, if they couldn't claim he balances their editorial page. Between Brooks, and Bill Kristol, they still don't have a full conservative between them.
Democrats: Stuck on Stupid since 2000.
Hire a house lib!
October 18, 2008 - 12:43 ET by Mica the MagnificentWhy don't we get a House Liberal?
Hire some Obama supporting a**hole off the street, pay him a hundred grand a year and put him on Brit Hume's show every night.
He or she can stammer and stutter their absolute idiocy in front of millions of happy, giggly and purring conservative viewers.
Brit: The constitution doesn't really say there's a separation of church and state. House lib?
House Lib: It's there, man. Like, my sister said she saw it and, like, we need to all get along and Bush sucks, you know what I mean?
David Brooks Changling
October 18, 2008 - 12:43 ET by Lame CherryPeople are missing the point as I wrote of Jesse Jackson being the bravest person in this 2008 political season as he turned on the Chicago and European syndicates backing Obama.
Jesse Jackson is an intelligence asset meant to keep blacks in line and David Brooks is the same asset like Peggy Noonan and David Gergen. THEY ARE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR OPERATIVES TO CONTROL THEIR RESPECTIVE GROUPS.
Brooks is akin to the fairytale changling. The babe found in the woods who is brought home and turns into the monster who eats you when it grows up.
I posted on Newsbusters my letter to the Wall Street Journal editor informing them my disgust of Peggy Noonan in another hit piece on Sarah Palin that sounds like something Keith Olbermann would rant. It sounds like it because these assets all work for the same bunch.
It used to be when Bob Novak was an asset to speak for the right and Tim Russert for the left that they actually loved America from their right or left skew, but you could count on them to be fair. Currently David Brooks is exposed literally as the the guy dressed as John Wayne Conservative who has a pink liberal tutu on underneath dancing all the while to globalist talking points.
Brooks didn't get that job at the Times on merit. He got the job to steer Conservatives to the Letterman cocktail crowd of liberalism with the caveat when push came to shove, the would sell out all for Marxist Obama.
I strongly urge people to go the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and wherever else the likes of David Gergen vomits their communist manifesto and inform the editors that you know what is up and are going to keep posting the facts noting what these shills are up to so that everyone in America knows the facts and they will loose their ability to steer groups.
If enough people keep posting on all the forums, it is a fact they will be "let go" just like Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson were sent to the hinterlands after they were used up.
Want proof of that? Newsbuster busting David Brooks and bloggers joining in pounding him with letters to the editor have already cause Mr. Brooks to "caveat" that Obama is not so great. Brooks is feeling the heat, so turn up the fire and do not let this go.
Pound David Brooks. I do care that McCain wins this for the good of America, but when he does DO NOT FORGET AND DO NOT QUIT POUNDING DAVID BROOKS on this forever internet even when he starts throwing you a bone showing how "conservative" he is, remember it is a CON servative he is running to save his job.
Go after all these million dollar changlings who are assests of the global leftists making money off of all of your work. Hammer him, pound him and then do it again when he cries out Uncle McCain forever.
Brooks chose to be a whore, so treat him like the sell out he is in betraying Ronald Reagan's America.
David Brooks is David Letterman is George Will is Keith Olbermann is Peggy Noonan is Joy Behar. They are all the same swine feeding out of the same money trough.
Make it happen people with your keyboards people so that David Brooks does not come up in a New York Times search first, but that hundreds of entries across the internet reveal David Brooks is a paid betrayer of the America Conservative movement of Ronald Reagan.
agtG
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
Isn't it amazing how the
October 18, 2008 - 12:49 ET by rbosqueIsn't it amazing how the MSM loves conservatives, so long as they think like they do?
What's scary is that they're using any means neccesary to package and sell socialist politicians to an idiotic ignorant shallow populous.
Conservative should never
October 18, 2008 - 13:34 ET by bpjamConservative should never be interchangeable with 'n#gger'. So I refuse to accept the description of David Brooks.
With that being said, Brooks is a total toady. He neither eschews conservatism nor does he appear to be a Republican. So who is more delusional? The NY Times for thinking that Brooks fills their quota of (1) Republican/Conservative or the rest of the media for constantly referring to him as being one?? Brooks opinion certainly doesn't matter. There are plenty of people in Bellevue who think they are Jesus Christ but we don't go building Churches for them to preach about it.
The NY Times ought to just stop pretending that it is anything other than a local newspaper for Manhattan and all of the liberals who live there. There is no need for other views to be falsely represented to fill a quota or to provide them political cover to continue being as liberal and anti-american as they natively desire.
But Brooks IS a "Conservative"
October 18, 2008 - 14:21 ET by EnDashTo the NY Times, Brooks certainly is a conservative. The standard is simple: he does not engage in the vitriolic and hysterical rants against Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Palin that Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd do; he doesn't propose cockamamie economic ideas as do Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman; and he hasn't yet gotten around to blaming the Bush administration for creating the financial crisis, fighting the Iraq war, or refusing to believe in the AGW hoax as do the paper's editorials. Ergo, by Times logic, he must be a conservative.
David Brooks Conservative
October 18, 2008 - 15:07 ET by rdjjpmDavid Brooks is impressed with Barack Obama's smooth oral delivery so unlike his own hesitant speech pattern. Listening to Brooks and Mark Shields critique John McCain's speaking skills is painful.
Sigh. Conservatives really
October 18, 2008 - 15:09 ET by Chris NormanSigh. Conservatives really have become powerless if we are forced to live with a guy like David Brooks being identified as one of our own. If he was a fish, at least we could throw him back...
McNotObama '08
If he was a fish, we could
October 18, 2008 - 15:13 ET by NL207If he was a fish, we could have a fish fry ...
And be arrested for hate
October 18, 2008 - 15:21 ET by Chris NormanAnd be arrested for hate crimes against fish, violating pollution laws, and serving food with trans-fat.
McNotObama '08
Brooks is to conservatism
October 18, 2008 - 18:06 ET by celatorBrooks is to conservatism as my yellow lab is to opera: the very sound of it makes their ears hurt.
"there hasn’t been a
October 18, 2008 - 19:27 ET by TN Mom"there hasn’t been a moment in which he has publicly lost his self"
Guess Brooks didn't watch any of the debates? obama stuttered, stammered, and at times huffed & puffed like a child. Just a few days ago obama said his lower poll ratings were the fault of Fox News.
Let me just say this...I
October 18, 2008 - 22:17 ET by msh1973Let me just say this...I work with a very liberal woman who thinks that Mark Shields and David Brooks are fantistic. Enough said. Brooks is a fraud.
Let's put it this way...if
October 18, 2008 - 23:59 ET by fitzfongLet's put it this way...if this self-important douchebag endorsed McCain, I'd be inclined to vote for Obama. Fortunately, I've already voted absentee for McCain.
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -Ronald Reagan
fitzfong.blogspot.com
I am proud to say...
October 19, 2008 - 01:45 ET by jawebster1I have never read the New York Times. All I know about David Brooks is what I have heard on talk radio, Fox News and the internet. As far as I am concerned, he is the newspaper version of David "Rodham" Gergen with more hair and glasses. With Conservatives like him, who needs Liberals. Jim Webster
Brooks is a
October 19, 2008 - 09:55 ET by DarkCurrentBrooks is a conservative?
Stereotyping here, but I've generally found that pink-skinned guys wearing pink shirts and wearing round-rimmed glasses were liberal weenies.