who else is sick of David Brooks

I suppose quite a few around here. Smug, half-bright and way too comfy.

This is my letter in response to him regarding his column today on morality -- which he doesn't seem to think "liberals" have in very great amounts -- and the Schaivo case.
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Mr. Brooks:

The “liberal" case is indeed a moral one, and stronger than the other. All law expresses underlying moral principles, however arrived at. The most important of these in our society is that rigorous and unbiased process is more likely to achieve a fair and therefore moral result than reliance on the faith, real or expedient, of rulers. No case has been more fully heard and litigated than this one, as even William Buckley agrees.

If social conservatives are truly committed to life as a value above all other, let them oppose the death penalty or denounce the prevarications that resulted in the deaths, by the thousands, of innocent Iraqi children at our hands.

By the way, there is nothing moral about the Republican Party cravenly reneging on 100 years of political philosophy for perceived partisan advantage.

I despise him.

:puke:

debate even when many Republicans knew they got spanked. He just does not seem that sharp to me at all.

this liberal is on, nor does he speak for me.

I'm just glad weasel boy is leaving The NewsHour, even
though he's going to be replaced Rich Lowry. :gaack:

Mark Shields a lot and never agree with Brooks. I always go past his column in the NY Times and go right to Krugman, Bob Herbert, etal. Needless to say if his column were on Schiavo, I would not have read it. There's been way, way too much grandstanding and pandering by the GOP on morality and religion. I wish there were some way to get religion out of politics these days.

When I read it, I thought, Could this be that guy on PBS who I turn the sound off until Mark Shields talks?

I hope everyone at DU knows about this Indian casino scandal that involves Focus on the Family, Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed and Delay. This article is brilliant!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/22/opinion/22brooks.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fDavid%20Brooks&oref=login

--snip
Master's of Sleeze

Only a genius like Jack Abramoff could make money lobbying against an Indian tribe's casino and then turn around and make money defending that tribe against himself. Only a giant like Abramoff would have the guts to use one tribe's casino money to finance a Focus on the Family crusade against gambling in order to shut down a rival tribe's casino...

...As time went by, the spectacular devolution of morals accelerated. Many of the young innovators were behaving like people who, having read Barry Goldwater's "Conscience of a Conservative," embraced the conservative part while discarding the conscience part.

Abramoff's and Scanlon's Indian-gaming scandal will go down as the movement's crowning achievement, more shameless than anything the others would do, but still the culmination of the trends building since 1995. It perfectly embodied their creed and philosophy: "I'd love us to get our mitts on that moolah!!" as Abramoff wrote to Reed.

They made at least $66 million.

This is a major accomplishment. And remember: Abramoff didn't do it on his own.

It took a village. The sleazo-cons thought they could take over K Street to advance their agenda. As it transpired, K Street took over them.

I know I shouldn't let a smug self satisfied shallow egotistical bastard upset me but I can't stand being told over and over that liberals have no moral underpinning.

I've volunteered at food banks - you want to know who's there day after day? Liberals. I've worked at Habitat for Humanity houses, who's there day after day? - Liberals. I've visited the hospices that allow death with dignity - you want to know who started them? - Liberals. Who marched in Selma when standing up for your rights as an African American citizen was deadly? - Liberals. Why am I, a woman, able to vote? Because liberals fought and liberal women starved themselves to death so I could. Why was I, a woman, able to become a college educated scientist and able to head up a department in a company devoted to fighting HIV? Because liberal women and men supported my right to be educated and my right to be considered any man's equal.

Who came up w/ social security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, worker's compensation, the eight hour day, the minimum wage - the list could on and on - LIBERALS.

Those moral conservatives only care about "life" in the abstract; they'll make sure you're born and that you die a prolonged miserable death, unless God forbid you're convicted, justly or unjustly, of a capital crime, then off with your head! In between that sacred birth and that holy death - you're on your own; don't expect a penny of their bloody money or an ounce of help from them.

I consider myself a moral person and a faithful Christian and I'll throw my lot in with the liberals every time.

Please send it to Brooks.

dabrooks@nytimes.com

I copied and pasted it into an e-mail. I got back a response saying:
Thanks very much for sending a response to my column, positive or
negative. I'm afraid I can't respond to each message. My editors would
wonder why I have no time to write for the paper. (But the rest of us would be ever so grateful!)
He goes on to say he reads every e-mail and often learns from them. (I only hope he learns what an ass is he.)

...every time I write to him, which is with depressing regularity.

He is actually easy to critique, since he generally establishes a false premise early in his column -- ex: liberals don't care about morality --- and then tries to sound reasonable, even-handed and even charitable in comparing it with his own view.

He recently wrote a large work of drivel about the modern American culture(s) --- Michael Kinsley took it apart rather expertly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/books/review/23KINSLEY.html?ex=1400644800&en=be5f0c0219c1b120&ei=5007&partner=USERLAND

That's evident from his blue state / red state polemic. No matter what he's writing about it is always remarkably free of facts or hard data. He sets up a duality such as liberals depend too much on reason and conservatives too much on emotion or red staters are working class salt of the earth folks and blue staters are hard driving elitist yuppies and he bends all the "facts" fit it.

His work is so predictable you could write a computer program that would spew out columns indistinguishable from his pap.

casting pearls before swine. I would also add my two bits to your thoughts.The reliance on faith by the Republicans to produce moral results requires the abandonment of reason which is the sine qua non of Western civilization.The day we abndon reason is the day we become victims of any pretender or charlatan.That process, unfortunately, has been too swift.

Great stuff.

And I've been weary of Brooks' foolishness for some time now.

when he wrote a column about why lower-middle class people didn't rise up when Bush cut taxes for the wealthy, which could only harm them. Brook's view was that the poor lived the fantasy that they too might, just might, become wealthy, and that identifying with the rich by supporting their tax cuts kept the fantasy going. Effectively, he called them 'stupid' and was bemused by it. He managed to be cynical, disdainful and smug in a few paragraphs, always a joy to read from someone whom I don't believe is anywhere as smart as he seems to think he is.

I wish that he comes back in the next life as a skid-row bum, one of those folks who don't qualify for welfare assistance. Since I don't expect that to happen, I've settle for not clicking on links to his articles, so he does not get the 'hits'.

See if you can find his column about Internet romance. Somehow Brooks got the idea that e-mailing and IM could bring back "old Victorian style courting." You know, where the parties corresponded for a long time before meeting.

Unfortunately, given the state of transportation in Victorian times, the Corresponding Courters couldn't agree to meet at a hot-sheet motel in an hour.

It was an incredibly bone-headed piece, and it certainly isn't his only one.

I think I first heard about a spouse running off with an Internet amour back in 1995 or so.