Speed Screed: David Brooks, Partisan Hack?

You may surprised to learn that I will give people credit where credit is due, once in a while. This is a personality defect that I’ve never managed to remove; but suffice to say that David Brooks once found himself grudgingly placed in that category by me. While I considered him to be a bit of a conservative mouthpiece, he at least creditably impersonated a centrist and was a fairly intelligent person to boot. His writing was somewhat erratic but at least I could get a vague feel for conservative arguments and also get a little insight into the vaguely rational “look out for big government” concerns.

Previously, he struck me as someone who was definitely a conservative but had the intelligence to say enough is enough, and he wrote at least a few token articles to that effect, condemning various choices by the current administration. I could rely on something insightful and informative about 1 out of 3 times, which is probably better than my average.

Sadly, this era of Brooks’ life seems to have ended with the nomination of John McCain.

Despite the fact that McCain’s continuation of the disastrous Bush saga is a foregone conclusion by all, Brooks is unable to wrench himself away from towing the party line, needlessly giving undeserved support to Palin and McCain, and trying to bolster McCain’s pathetic non-stance on real issues by talking about his character, which McCain has consistently shown is deteriorating rapidly over the course of the presidential race. His poorly written “satire” of Obama’s acceptance speech was a whiny and sophomoric attempt to mock a historic speech of real substance and importance, and his most recent shoring up of Palin’s modest success at not failing utterly at the VP debate (which was a complete and total victory for Biden, if you believe that things like “facts” are important, though I know they’ve gone out of style in USA) only goes to show that for all his talks about being a centrist, he is someone who will ignore his intellect in favor of a political party that in no way deserves his loyalty or his defensive efforts.

This is a lot like faith, if you think about it. Instead of religion, it’s a political philosophy. He seems to be content with the cognitive dissonance of being a smart guy and acting as an apologist for an attitude toward government and massive ineptitude that has caused one crisis after another. The fact that he has never broken down and given his backstabbing, treasonous party the finger (metaphorically, via angry invective) means that he is simply a closet GOP hack masquerading as a centrist.

If you want center, you can’t get much more center than Obama. Bill Clinton was practically left of him. But this state of affairs is not too late, Mr. Brooks. Your party has failed you – you don’t have to go down with the ship! Wait until they reinvent themselves as something deserving of your support! Join your intelligent conservative brethren in waving goodbye to a so-called Republican party that has Jefferson rolling over in his grave. You won’t regret it.

By the way: Fuck Ronald Reagan.

It had to be said.