The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Hallucinogenic Effects of Centrism: ‘WTF Is David Brooks Smoking?’

Posted on | May 21, 2010 | 20 Comments

That’s Dan Riehl’s reaction to the latest eruption of elitist idiocy from the “conservative” New York Times columnist:

Let’s imagine a character named Ben. A couple of decades ago, Ben went to high school.
It wasn’t easy. His parents were splitting up. His friends would cut class to smoke weed. His sister got pregnant. But Ben worked hard and graduated with decent grades and then studied at East Stroudsburg University and the University of Phoenix.
That wasn’t easy either. Ben would like to have majored in history, but he needed a skill so he studied hotel management. Others spent their college years partying, but Ben worked hard. After graduation, he got a job with a hotel chain. A few years later, he got a different job and then a different one. . . .

After meandering onward in hypothetical “‘let’s pretend” mode for a while, Brooks finally brings it down to what we might suppose to be his point:

Once there was a group in the political center that would have understood Ben’s outrage. . . .

(As previously noted in another context, this is just retreading Arthur Schlesinger’s misleading and obsolete “Vital Center” thesis, but let’s get back to Brooks and his imaginary “Ben” character.)

So when Ben looked around for leaders who might understand his outrage, he only found them among the ideological hard-liners. In Arkansas, he saw a MoveOn candidate, Bill Halter, crusading against the bailouts and the spoils culture. On the right, he saw the Tea Party candidate Rand Paul crusading against runaway spending and debt. . . .

And so Brooks trundles on to “conclusion” wherein he hopes for “moderates . . . to revive and define the free labor tradition.” Just more rainbows-and-unicorns wishful thinking by the least insightful political columnist in American history.

What Brooks does not seem to grasp is that there can be no “moderate” compromise between defenders of a free-market economy and Democrats who are implacably hostile to economic freedom. By his “pox on both your houses” stance, Brooks suggests a moral equivalence that permits Democrats to claim that they must protect America from the “extremist” threat on the Right.

There is no “Vital Center.” There never was any such thing. Arthur Schlesinger cooked up that propaganda concept in the midst of a rightward backlash during the Truman era as a way of portraying conservatives as extremists. The only purpose “Vital Center” rhetoric has ever served is the purpose for which it was conceived — to encourage Republicans to follow the continued leftward drift of the Democratic Party.

And why the hell does Brooks need to create imaginary voters for the purposes of political argument, when Pennsylvania’s 12th District is less than a four-hour drive from David Brooks’s D.C. home and a flight from Dulles to Louisville can be booked online for under $300? Interviewing actual voters, however, might disabuse Brooks of his preconceived notions, to which he clings with the frightened tenacity of a 3-year-old hugging her favorite teddy bear.

David Brooks represents a fatal cancer to American journalism. He should be loaded onto an Air Force C-130 and air-dropped over Waziristan, without a parachute.

By the way, I’m sorry I missed David Brooks Fisking Day on its regular Tuesday schedule. I was kinda busy Tuesday.

Category: David Brooks Fisking Day

Comments

20 Responses to “The Hallucinogenic Effects of Centrism: ‘WTF Is David Brooks Smoking?’”

  1. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 9:14 pm

    Dan is right about David Brook on this one. This is downright strange. And Brookie’s “Ben” could be 50% of the male kids I went to high school with (although not all of us had sisters who got pregnant in high school or parents who got divorced).

    But most of us who worked hard, have led generally law abiding lives, and who are disgusted with the current political situation are not looking to follow the Call of the Moderate that David Frum and David Brooks promote. I can assure you of that.

  2. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 4:14 pm

    Dan is right about David Brook on this one. This is downright strange. And Brookie’s “Ben” could be 50% of the male kids I went to high school with (although not all of us had sisters who got pregnant in high school or parents who got divorced).

    But most of us who worked hard, have led generally law abiding lives, and who are disgusted with the current political situation are not looking to follow the Call of the Moderate that David Frum and David Brooks promote. I can assure you of that.

  3. Noel
    May 21st, 2010 @ 9:19 pm

    Brooks wants “moderates” to bring back “the free labor tradition — a tradition that uses government to encourage work, to reward work, and to uphold the values at the core of Ben’s life.”

    But what if the Right wants to encourage and reward work and the Left wants to hand out free stuff and encourage dependency?

    In that case, by definition, the “moderate” position is somewhere in between.

    And why “use government”? Why not “stop government” from discouraging work in the first place? And…oops; I see I’ve just used up all my “Think About David Brooks”-time for the month.

  4. Noel
    May 21st, 2010 @ 4:19 pm

    Brooks wants “moderates” to bring back “the free labor tradition — a tradition that uses government to encourage work, to reward work, and to uphold the values at the core of Ben’s life.”

    But what if the Right wants to encourage and reward work and the Left wants to hand out free stuff and encourage dependency?

    In that case, by definition, the “moderate” position is somewhere in between.

    And why “use government”? Why not “stop government” from discouraging work in the first place? And…oops; I see I’ve just used up all my “Think About David Brooks”-time for the month.

  5. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 9:34 pm

    Mother Jones sees the glass half full (although I do not want to drink what Mother Jones is drinking).

  6. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 4:34 pm

    Mother Jones sees the glass half full (although I do not want to drink what Mother Jones is drinking).

  7. Bob Belvedere
    May 21st, 2010 @ 10:08 pm

    What a Douche Nozzle [thanks Red].

  8. Bob Belvedere
    May 21st, 2010 @ 5:08 pm

    What a Douche Nozzle [thanks Red].

  9. jefferson101
    May 21st, 2010 @ 10:30 pm

    If you listen to the MSM, (or, as Ace has taken to putting it, the MFM, which I’m assuming means what I take it to mean, but YMMV) there are two types of “Conservatives.

    One on hand, we get the Troglo-Cons, who want to repeal the Constitution and go back to the Articles of Confederation. (And for those of you who are sheltered, they do exist. I’m far enough to the Right that I run into them regularly.)

    The other group you get to see is the Brooksian “Compassionate Conservative”, who meets Mark Steyn’s criteria for a DIABLO. (Democrat In All But Letter Only)

    That’s two percent of us. The rest of us don’t want to either repeal the Constitution or surrender to the Progressive movement.

    I’m just glad there are a few places around that represent the other 98% of us.

  10. jefferson101
    May 21st, 2010 @ 5:30 pm

    If you listen to the MSM, (or, as Ace has taken to putting it, the MFM, which I’m assuming means what I take it to mean, but YMMV) there are two types of “Conservatives.

    One on hand, we get the Troglo-Cons, who want to repeal the Constitution and go back to the Articles of Confederation. (And for those of you who are sheltered, they do exist. I’m far enough to the Right that I run into them regularly.)

    The other group you get to see is the Brooksian “Compassionate Conservative”, who meets Mark Steyn’s criteria for a DIABLO. (Democrat In All But Letter Only)

    That’s two percent of us. The rest of us don’t want to either repeal the Constitution or surrender to the Progressive movement.

    I’m just glad there are a few places around that represent the other 98% of us.

  11. Adobe Walls
    May 21st, 2010 @ 10:38 pm

    The Republican party does not need moderates to win even in the North East it needs principled Conservatives. We and our country would be much better served by 45 dedicated filibusters in the Senate than 45 conservatives and 16 squishes. Moderate centrists are cowards who refuse to make a principled stand in the quivering hope that we can all just learn to get along and make nice. It is my firm belief that if we can force those cowards trapped in the quagmire of moderation to the choice between Right and Left that they will chose correctly thus saving humanity.

  12. Adobe Walls
    May 21st, 2010 @ 5:38 pm

    The Republican party does not need moderates to win even in the North East it needs principled Conservatives. We and our country would be much better served by 45 dedicated filibusters in the Senate than 45 conservatives and 16 squishes. Moderate centrists are cowards who refuse to make a principled stand in the quivering hope that we can all just learn to get along and make nice. It is my firm belief that if we can force those cowards trapped in the quagmire of moderation to the choice between Right and Left that they will chose correctly thus saving humanity.

  13. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 10:53 pm

    “Moderates” like Brooks and Frum are not the answer.

    I do not mind fiscal conservatives who may happen to be socially libertarian. I am a social libertarian, because I think the less the government intervenes in our lives the better. There is no such thing as a one size fits all conservative. But all conservatives should share a desire to see government reduced in size, lower taxes, free markets, strong defense and unabashed patriotism.

  14. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 5:53 pm

    “Moderates” like Brooks and Frum are not the answer.

    I do not mind fiscal conservatives who may happen to be socially libertarian. I am a social libertarian, because I think the less the government intervenes in our lives the better. There is no such thing as a one size fits all conservative. But all conservatives should share a desire to see government reduced in size, lower taxes, free markets, strong defense and unabashed patriotism.

  15. ak4mc
    May 22nd, 2010 @ 3:12 am

    I think of him as David “Our Miss” Brooks.

  16. ak4mc
    May 21st, 2010 @ 10:12 pm

    I think of him as David “Our Miss” Brooks.

  17. Joe
    May 22nd, 2010 @ 3:34 am

    Miss Brooks regrets she is unable to lunch today…

  18. Joe
    May 21st, 2010 @ 10:34 pm

    Miss Brooks regrets she is unable to lunch today…

  19. Estragon
    May 22nd, 2010 @ 6:24 am

    Reading Brooks is far too tedious a task to undertake for the near-complete lack of beneficial knowledge which can be gained from the activity. Since he first was selected by the NYT to replace Safire, I doubt I’ve read more than a dozen of his columns in full.

    `

    Before he went uptown, he occasionally made an interesting point or offered a lucid observation. But that was then, and this is now.

    `

    The excerpted passage is just plain weird, though. About as weird as admiring the well-pressed creases on Obama’s pants and thinking that contributed to his ability to perform the job . . . well, maybe not quite that weird.

    `

    The greater point remains: I’m unemployed right now, and I don’t have the free time in my life to waste reading Brooks. Who does, and why?

  20. Estragon
    May 22nd, 2010 @ 1:24 am

    Reading Brooks is far too tedious a task to undertake for the near-complete lack of beneficial knowledge which can be gained from the activity. Since he first was selected by the NYT to replace Safire, I doubt I’ve read more than a dozen of his columns in full.

    `

    Before he went uptown, he occasionally made an interesting point or offered a lucid observation. But that was then, and this is now.

    `

    The excerpted passage is just plain weird, though. About as weird as admiring the well-pressed creases on Obama’s pants and thinking that contributed to his ability to perform the job . . . well, maybe not quite that weird.

    `

    The greater point remains: I’m unemployed right now, and I don’t have the free time in my life to waste reading Brooks. Who does, and why?