The sedate liberal salon at NPR was shaken up on Friday night's All Things Considered when pseudo-conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks taunted Bernie Sanders for waving a “white flag of surrender” on Hillary Clinton’s ethics at the first Democratic debate.
Brooks began by declaring the Republican debates have “a lot less content” with Donald Trump in the room, but “the one advantage the Republicans have is they actually, a bunch of them want to be president. On the Democratic side, only one person wants to be president. That’s Hillary Clinton.”
NPR anchor Audie Cornish jumped in to protest for NPR’s socialist audience: “There are going to be a lot of Bernie Sanders fans who dispute that comment.” That couldn't be considered at All Things Considered.
Brooks actually demonstrated gumption:
Well then, why doesn’t he challenge her? You know, just as a matter of political tactics, he really only has one avenue to beat her, and I don’t think it’s going to be ideological. People are going to have to decide she’s not trustworthy enough, she’s not viable enough on character and personal grounds to be elected, and when he takes the e-mails off the table, he’s really giving up that leverage. I think he basically raised the white flag of surrender.
Unsurprisingly, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne took the usual liberal party line that Sanders” reflected the overwhelming view within the Democratic Party,” including Sanders backers. Dionne was still crowing about House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announcing on Fox that the Benghazi probe hurt Hillary in the polls.
Brooks tried to bring himself back to center a little by declaring Sanders has a “good ideological and good intellectual background, he’s very consistent” in his campaign. Cornish, still stunned, concluded the segment, “With that scorched-earth review, David Brooks of The New York Times.”
As usual, Brooks repeated his themes at the PBS NewsHour, but drew less rebuttal. Fill-in host Hari Sreenivasan didn't interrupt, and his liberal partner Mark Shields basically agreed.
DAVID BROOKS: There was a difference in tone, a difference in subject matter. I think the Democrats actually have the advantage of subject matter, because they actually did talk about middle-class concerns, whereas Republicans are talking about weird stuff.
But the other factor is, the Republicans are actually arguing and fighting with each other. And what I saw up there was Hillary Clinton performing extremely well, and four other guys lying down and let her, letting her have the nomination. It’s like Bernie Sanders held up the white flag of surrender when he refused to really go after her on the character and moral issue, which is his only way in. And the other three, I don’t know why they were there.
It was mildly humorous when Shields praised Hillary's performance because "it bordered on the authentic. I thought she did very well. David is right. Campaigns are about differences. And when you’re behind somebody, you better draw the differences with them, whether it’s in style, or substance, or record, or character. And the others didn’t do that."
