Has Barack Obama lost New York Times columnist David Brooks?
In his piece Tuesday, the so-called conservative said the President last Friday "lectured the leaders of the House and Senate in the sort of patronizing tone that a junior high principal might use with immature delinquents...personalizing the issue like a spurned prom date":
Obama never should have gone in front of the cameras just minutes after the talks faltered Friday evening. His appearance was suffused with that ''I'm the only mature person in Washington'' condescension that drives everybody else crazy. Obama lectured the leaders of the House and Senate in the sort of patronizing tone that a junior high principal might use with immature delinquents. He talked about unreturned phone calls and being left at the altar, personalizing the issue like a spurned prom date.
Certainly strange to see on the pages of the Gray Lady, especially from its so-called conservative columnist who at times has exhibited the same thrill up his leg for Obama that MSNBC's Chris Matthews unashamedly boasts about.
But that, for the time being, seems to be waning as Brooks said the President has diminished himself in this debate ceding authority to more experienced political leaders:
This should be a humbling moment for the White House, and maybe a learning experience. There are other people who have been around Washington a long time. They know how to play this game. As a result of their efforts, we may see some debt reduction but nothing big and transformational. Obama won't get his centrist election boost. Republicans won't have to wrestle with tax increases. Democrats won't have to wrestle with entitlement reform.
The Old Guard wins. Obama's televised campaign speech Monday night was behind the times. The action has moved to Capitol Hill.
Indeed.
Through his own actions, the former junior Senator from Illinois has effectively rewritten Rudyard Kipling's classic renaming it "The King Who Would Be Man."
That someone at the Times - even one of its phony conservative columnists - would play the part of the narrator makes it even more entertaining.
