18 Replies to “BREAKING: DAVID BROOKS A FAN OF OBAMA'S”

1. LTC John says:

   September 20, 2011 at 10:45 am

   I…I…I don’t know what to say… ITS OK, DAVID. ALL IS FORGIVEN! NONE CAN RESIST THE SHARP PANTS CREASE!

2. Carin says:

   September 20, 2011 at 10:48 am

   I refuse to believe it.

3. sdferr says:

   September 20, 2011 at 10:48 am

   For Martin Peretz, as for Brooks, serious, even withering, criticism of Obama must be accompanied by equal or stronger criticism of the devil Republicans. It’s only right, a demonstration of their bona fides.

4. cranky-d says:

   September 20, 2011 at 10:59 am

   No one could have seen this coming.

5. DarthLevin says:

   September 20, 2011 at 11:05 am

   Next up for Brookthy: “Yeah, Obama pulled the wool over my eyes. But this Huntsman guy? He’s the real deal, and looks ever so good in those fanny-hugging dress slacks.”

6. geoffb says:

   September 20, 2011 at 11:06 am

   The administration knows their “Brooks & Frum” and assume that they are exemplars not outliers.

   So after his initial two years of dealing with an economic and financial crisis while pursuing an activist social agenda with Democrats in control of the House and Senate, and then a frustrating third year sharing power with Republicans, Mr. Obama now begins writing a third chapter for his final 15 months that is not the one he had in mind.

   “It is fair to say we’ve entered a new phase,” said Dan Pfeiffer, Mr. Obama’s communications director. But he disputed what he called the conventional wisdom behind the president’s shift.

   “The popular narrative is that we sought compromise in a quixotic quest for independent votes. We sought out compromise because a failure to get funding of the government last spring and then an extension of the debt ceiling in August would have been very bad for the economy and for the country,” Mr. Pfeiffer added. “We were in a position of legislative compromise by necessity. That phase is behind us.”

   In this new phase, Mr. Obama must solidify support among Democrats by standing pat for progressive party principles, while trusting that a show of strong leadership for the policies he believes in will appeal to independents. Polls consistently suggest that perhaps the only thing that unites independents as much as their desire for compromise is their inclination toward leaders who signal strength by fighting for their beliefs.

   “The president laid down a marker today that is true to his beliefs,” said Jacob J. Lew, director of Mr. Obama’s Office of Management and Budget.

   Wouldn’t that bolded part apply to “leaders” from any side not just the progressive one? It also highlights the “foolish inconsistency” that is the independent’s mind.

7. proudvastrightwingconspirator says:

   September 20, 2011 at 11:11 am

   Good Morning Mr. Brooks!

   Here’s your September, 2011 wake up call….YOU FUCKING RINO DOLT!

8. Squid says:

   September 20, 2011 at 1:29 pm

   Polls consistently suggest that perhaps the only thing that unites independents as much as their desire for compromise is their inclination toward leaders who signal strength by fighting for their beliefs.

   I’ll fight for my belief that the federal government should be half the size it currently is. And I’m willing to compromise by only cutting it 20% (that’s what a poor negotiator I am).

   After four years of these 20% compromises, I’d almost be willing to admit defeat and move on.

9. dicentra says:

   September 20, 2011 at 2:02 pm

   Interesting rhetorical pose.

   I still believe in the governing style Obama talked about in 2008. I may be the last one. I’m a sap.

   As in, Obama isn’t living up to what Brooks believed about him. Obama is Lucy with the football, and he, the perennial sap, lands flat on his back every single time, and never learns that Lucy can’t be trusted.

   To be an Obama admirer is to toggle from being uplifted to feeling used.

   So stop falling for the con, you moron. Cripes, where do people like this come from?

10. Ernst Schreiber says:

    September 20, 2011 at 2:16 pm

    [P]erhaps the only thing that unites independents as much as their desire for compromise is their inclination toward leaders who signal strength by fighting for their beliefs.

    I thought it was conservatives who were supposed to defer to authority figures. Now I’m confused.

11. McGehee says:

    September 20, 2011 at 3:05 pm

    The New York Times needs to reconsider its decision to foster Brooks’ punditry.

12. Spiny Norman says:

    September 20, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    A sap? Really Brooksy? To paraphrase Eric “Otter” Stratton, you fucked up. You trusted him.

13. Squid says:

    September 20, 2011 at 3:12 pm

    “I thought you were a Muncie girl!”

14. mojo says:

    September 20, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    I get no kick from champagne
    Mere alcohol doesn’t move me at all
    So tell me, why should it be true
    That I get a KICK out of you…
    — Cole Porter

15. Yackums says:

    September 21, 2011 at 1:36 am

    McGehee –

    I saw what you did there. Nice.

16. Mueller says:

    September 21, 2011 at 7:41 am

    David Brooks has a vagina. And he uses it as his brain.

17. ThomasD says:

    September 21, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    Brooks is not a genius, but neither is he mentally defective.

    He knew exactly who Obama was from the get go. Brooks’ latest ‘admission’ of being a sap is as painless to him as it is false. Where Brooks’ insight did fail him is in predicting America’s response to Obama. There he entirely missed the boat, and this is something he would never concede. That would be an honest admission of a basic lack of knowledge about a large portion of America, coupled with woefully failed insight into our system of politics – potentially fatal flaws in his line of work.

    Brooks expected that the hoi polloi in flyover land would largely swallow the ‘progressive sweep,’ and further expected that the majority of politicians, ever blowing with the prevailing winds, would go along for the ride.

    Instead a large, sustained, and principled opposition rose up out of the populace and gave enough backbone to enough politicians to check the statist advance, and allow enough space and time for the effects of the statists to be seen for what they are.

    At this point Brooks is merely the leading edge of what we’ve already recognized as a growing trend. Rather than owning up to the apparent failures of their entire worldview the leftist/progressive/statists are seeking to create distance from the culpability of their entire system by blaming Obama specifically.

    It will be easier for Brooks to remain an active voice in politics once Obama is gone having apportioned all of the misery to Obama, and limiting his own culpability to the ‘sole’ mistake of having ‘trusted him.’

    This, for Brooks, is infinitely more palatable than having to perpetually deny that the policies he supported have proven, not only anathema to a large swath of the polity, but also to be practical failures.

18. sdferr says:

    September 21, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    That looks like mighty good analysis Thomas D. It kind of boils down to Brooks being incurious about himself, as well as the world around him, for all the appearances of curiosity he has cultivated in the past.

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