I always knew David Brooks was an asshole ....

As much as I hate to defend Brooks, I think this is an unfair "gotcha" slam - he was obviously using the number 10,000 rhetorically to begin with. He's just trying to argue that even more Iraqis will die if we pull out, which may or may not be true but is not exactly an assertion "out of the air."

Given that so many generals, Bushies, neocons, and "experts" have offered their own out-of-the-air assertions since 2002, I'm prepared to slap the shit out of Brooks, especially after that slavish Bush column he wrote last week.

xpost

But Hurting, he's inserting an exact number to make a hypothetical scenario seem like a concrete actuality. Far from the worst of his crimes, but it highlights how slippery his support for his arguments typically is.

In other words, I'd let this go in many other cases, but Brooks deserves to be called out on this.

Ok, but advocates of withdrawal say stuff like "It can't get worse than it already is" all the time, which is just as hypothetical.

Besides, how literal-minded do you have to be to think that David Brooks is claiming to know exactly how many Iraqis will die per month?

Well, he claims to know a lot of stuff that he doesn't!

But regardless, this sort of rhetoric gets those numbers out there as talking points. Soon enough, 10K and 125 become the accepted estimations that you have to argue against.

Should we just keep a running tally of his clueless Obama/"class warfare"/"lakefront liberal" columns that he dribbles out like so much Olean?

F'instance

Perhaps he'll finally reach the point of just doing a find/replace of "Kerry" with "Obama" on his shit from 4 years ago. It would certainly save him effort.

Methinks that lean times at the Times call for a cutback:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/opinion/03brooks.html

actually i kind of liked that column--he's right, all Ward 3'rs hate everyone in Bethesda and Potomac.

I grew up in Ward 3. Maybe the dynamics have changed since I lived there (due to 8 years of republican rule?) but at the time I didn't sense that there was a huge distinction seen between that and Bethesda. Also Ward 3 was full of incredibly intelligent, interesting people who could have made much more money in the private sector and felt some kind of calling to government.

"Nyah, they're just jealous" -- this passes for biting social commentary?

yeah i was kind of kidding--like everything else he writes about he's way over simplified everything. dude is such a goober

ah ok, I think I see the sarcasm now

as far as i can tell brooks never knows if he's kidding or not.

its funny how in their search for a palatable republican the times found the most inane guy in the wrold

http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/images/2007/05/15/david_brooks.jpg

"OK, fine. Let's talk about inanity."

David Brooks is the name of:
David Allen Brooks (born 1947), American film and television actor who played archaeologist Max Eilerson on the science-fiction television series Crusade
David Brooks (author) (born 1953), Australian author of short stories and co-editor for Southerly
David "Bubba" Brooks, American jazz musician
David Brooks (inventor), inventor who patented an innovative insulator for telegraph lines in 1867 while working for the Central Pacific Railroad
David Brooks (journalist) (born 1961), commentator for The New York Times and other publications
David "Mavado" Brooks (musician), Jamaican dancehall artist
David Brooks (murderer) (born 1955), teenaged accomplice of serial killer Dean Corll
David Brooks (politician) (1756–1838), United States representative in the Fifth United States Congress
David Brooks (rugby league), Australian rugby league footballer
David Brooks (rugby union), British rugby union footballer

No results found for "gayvid brooks".

http://www.suepatrick.com/images_home_special/david_brooks.jpg

Maybe this is the David Brooks thread I'm looking for.

Taibbi dissects what has got to be one of the worst things Brooks has written in recent memory.

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/27/populism-just-like-racism/

There he was on PBS last night talking about the State of the Union and all I could think about at the time was his error-filled hateful post on Haiti.

Taibbi needs to challenge him to a public debate.

MT really on fire there

It's hard to believe that the same columnist today wrote a piece that channels some sort of "saner Ross Perot" populist that Obama should either become or lose to in 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/opinion/29brooks.html?ref=opinion

in private he wanks to military coups tho

it is a source of amazement in my daily life that this guy is allowed to write anywhere, much less for the nyt

And appear on PBS and NPR.

So he wants a 'Perot' to turn Obama into a Clinton to get rid of the deficit and not do any of those liberal things he thinks are predictable. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

On a minor note, it's A HUGE pet peeve when a writer, usually a columnist, tries to avoid using a cliché by modifying it. Like:

There is a specter haunting America: the specter of a saner, updated version of Ross Perot.

"there is a parrot haunting america: an avian, updated version of phil spector"

he reads like a columnist you'd find in an airplane magazine

it's not even a matter of disagreeing with him--i just don't think he's very bright.

lol or what bnw said!

He's swayed by power and the kind of self-mocking assurance that he wishes he had.

aren't we all

i kind of agree with that column?

i think Obama could use a little crazy Perot/crazy chart stuff right about now

A spectre is haunting Mr. Que.

but i mean Brooks usually drives me crazy with his bullshit

I am so pro-crazy charts

He is slick. He sets up strawmen on the left and right and puts himself in the middle. The problem is his descriptions of the left, right, and middle are never accurate even if he claims to be quoting an informed neutral source.

If you get a deficit-reduction deal, you break through the polarized rigidities that encrust everything else.

Yea like the lobbyists just disappeared and both parties got what their constituents wanted after Clinton reduced the deficit.

He may be an asshole, but he is now the NYT OpEd Page's most fervent Obama supporter! (The company you keep...) And he hit truth here:

To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/opinion/12brooks.html

Context, bro:

"Take foreign policy. To the consternation of many on the left, Obama has continued about 80 percent of the policies of the second Bush term."

Also, Brooks is an idiot, so "company you keep" applies to people agreeing with his thought process i.e. you.

oic

Democratfascists

eh i actually agreed with that last brooks column

really its Brooks discovering something a year after the rest of the planet again.

Usually a few days after writing a column like that (which he does periodically) he follows up with some knee-jerk neo-con stuff. Its the columns like this one that keep getting him invited back on NPR and PBS, not his ones blaming poor Haitians for their troubles, etc.

He is slick. He sets up strawmen on the left and right and puts himself in the middle.

otm. He's the last bobo in paradise.

David Brooks is back to forecasting election results based on his analysis of suburban voters and his skewed analysis of values--

Moderate suburban voters do not see the world as liberals do, even in the most propitious circumstances, and never will.

Bitterly and too late, Dr. Faustus recognized that economic policies are about values. If your policies undermine personal responsibility by separating the link between effort and reward, voters will punish you for it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/opinion/22brooks.html?src=me&ref=general