David Brooks tries in his column today to do something I've warned about before. He tries to claim Theodore Roosevelt as a conservative, which he most definitely is not. TR was a liberal, period. I've written about the need to claim liberal Republicans as our own. This is crucial for us as we frame American history as a march, however uneven, toward the triumph of the progressive values we share, and progressivism as being rooted in American history going back two centuries (rather than simply being seen a deviation from 'traditional values' that cropped up in the oft-[unfairly] derided 1960s). Why is this important? Because progressivism has been a winner in the big picture since 1776, and we need to portray it as being a winner. Doing so makes it more likely that progressivism will continue winning. Winners win. Losers lose. It's that simple.

See more after the jump.

For some reason -- maybe because it's summer in Arizona; maybe because I'm having a mini-midlife crisis -- I'm re-reading a lot of books I liked in high school and freshman college. This includes the novels of Ayn Rand and Kurt Vonnegut, an odd couple by any yardstick.  

(Source: Huffington Post)

In her freshly posted entry, Arianna Huffington breezily mentions that everyone's favorte Irrelevant Pundit with a Pink Tie had a little convo with the Prez.

In today's New York Times, David "the plural of anecdote is data" Brooks examines the stats on Obama's donors to conclude that successful educated professionals tend to overwhelmingly support Democrats.  

I suppose it is nice that Brooks, a national columnist paid millions for his supposed insight, is finally acknowledging what has been painfully obvious to everyone else for years.  But beyond this he gets it entirely wrong, and in so doing provides some sobering insight into the conservative brain (such that there is such a thing).

Today's Times op-ed page reads like an all out assault on the sensibilities of anyone who might even be thinking of voting for Obama!

What the hell are they thinking?

First, you have Thomas F. Schaller (The South Will Fall Again)saying there's no way Obama can win the south because, OBTW, it's still the home of crazy Confederates who'd never vote for a black man.

Then you have David Brooks (Obama's Money Class) trying to villianize the new (democratic) upper-class created by the information revolution because - god forbid - they came upon their riches through education and luck, as opposed to inheriting it from some great crime perpetrated by some far away ancestor.

Finally, there is some loony bin named Jack E. Caveney (sorry, couldn't find a link to this idiot, you'll have to read him in meat space) from Hinsdale, IL, who obviously plunked down his personal fortune (or was it?) to buy the corner of the op-ed page to rant about how the oil companies are being strangled by the Democratic Party because they can't put an oil well into anything they want.

What a load of crap!

In an otherwise typically simplistic and uninformative column, David Brooks outlined exactly why the Republican Party as currently composed will do everything within its power to win this election.

"The trends are pretty clear: rising economic sectors tend to favor Democrats while declining economic sectors are more likely to favor Republicans. The Democratic Party (not just Obama) has huge fund-raising advantages among people who work in electronics, communications, law and the catchall category of finance, insurance and real estate. Republicans have the advantage in agribusiness, oil and gas and transportation. Which set of sectors do you think are going to grow most quickly in this century’s service economy?"

David Brooks: The man who puts the PUB* in rePUBlican....

(Ed. Note: *...Pure Unadulterated Bullshit.)

That horse's ass, David Brooks, has just come out and let us know, in his OpEd New York Times Piece-O-Shyte, the surge is a success and Bush's "unwillingness to accept defeat on his watch" has led us to this proud moment.  Is that my lunch coming up?  Success!!!!

We hit rock bottom in 2004, began digging for a couple more years, and now we have a very brief moment whereas there is an ebb in the day to day shit storm.  If someone wants to call this a success story, and create some pathetic positive narrative for McCain, my head is going to implode.

Oh crap!  I forgot!  We are not suppose to talk about the war.  Didn't we all get the memo from the media....the war is so passe let's get onto more important topics.  

This is from the blog, Last Kaul.

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders . . . to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds . . .  (and) . . .  we are mired in a stalemate that could only be ended by negotiation, not victory."

That's not a quotation from Barack Obama.  Or even Dennis Kucinich.  

David Brooks says that he is thankful that George Bush is stubborn, self-confident and secretive, because the "surge" is working! Brooks says that the naysayers may harp on the fact that 1,073 U.S. troops and more than 20,000 Iraqis have died since it began and complain that the benchmarks that it was supposed to enable haven’t happened, but they’ll eat their words because victory is just around the corner.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

It must be hard to be a conservative columnist in the waning days of the Bush empire.

It must be hard to be a conservative columnist in the months leading up to what will most likely be a crushing defeat of John McCain.

And it must be very hard to be David Brooks, conservative columnist for the New York Times, trying to salvage your credibility as report after report after report proves that you have spent the better part of the past eight years on the wrong side.

Brooks says: Bush was right on surge and you've GOT to give him credit.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

Life is complicated. The reason we have democracy is that no one side is right all the time. The only people who are dangerous are those who can’t admit, even to themselves, that obvious fact.

Cleary, Brooks is trying to brush back the people who have been right all along on the war.   Those who have been against the war from teh beginning are now confirmed in their certainty, which Brooks would like to turn into a vice: "Hey, you'd better start realizing that nobody's right all the time, or you're dangerous....like Bush himself."  

Of course, nobody IS right all the time.   But Brooks bootstaps it into a specifc....that  Bush was right on the surge.  That's the specific issue that you must give bush credit on. Admit Bush was right about the surge, or you're dangerous.  

    For the past two weeks there has been a word that keeps cropping up in the talks of the Republican attack dogs and in the right leaning media types discussions of Senator Obama. I find it striking that so many of them have coincidently begun using the same word in the criticisms of the Senator. The reason that I think it is important to point out this coincidence is because they are actually code-speak for white males. The word that keeps cropping up is Machiavellian. I first heard it on CNN Newsroom last week when the anchor person was discussing Senator Obama’s speech at a church on Father’s Day and his call for black fathers to step up and become more involved in raising their children.

Before we get into Mr. Brooks' recent article in the NY Times on Barack Obama, let’s look at what David is. David is the token sensible Republican. You see him on Public and commercial TV, all the time. He gives we fortunate viewers the other side of the story. Supposedly this is fair, objective and helps in the search for truth.  David does this with some charm and not too aggressively so the networks like MSNBC, NBC, PBS, etc.  can tolerate him. This is his schtick. If he were a liberal, democrat or independent he would not stand-out at the Times and he would not get on the tube. David doesn’t get play time on FOX for the same reason, lack of contrast, that he gets on PBS, nor would he get to play on PBS without the NY Times credentials. Hell, he is like Lieberman and Hagle, it is the contrast that matters.

Today, David Brooks hoists himself by his own petard of absurdist, disingenuous blather. I refer to this mendacious editorial in which he lauds Saint McCain and paints Obama as a shrewd and ruthless political opportunist masquerading as latte-sipping leftist.

Here's the key paragraph:

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

Such assertions would seem funny if columnists so dishonest weren't taken seriously by those who claim to speak for mainstream America. But take heart. Nauseatingly insincere though Brooks is, at this point in the political cycle, after nearly eight years of the criminal organization called the Bush Administration, such nonsense is playing to an ever-smaller audience.

In fact, there's reason to believe such nonsense actually helps Obama.  

David Brooks clearly fell off the Obama wagon hard. He went from writing absolutely glowing articles about Sen. Obama, to somewhat ambivalent yet respectful articles, and now to outright character assassination.

I usually enjoy David Brooks' column. He writes with an eye towards culture at large, and is often elucidating when discussing society in general.

It is, however, when he aggressively carries water on behalf of the Republican party that Brooks is at his worst. And today he wrote as clear cut a partisan hit piece as they come, so I thought I'd take the time to take it read it so you wouldn't have to.

Public financing is in the news today. It shouldn't be.

Ladies and gentlemen, I direct your attention to the center ring where Mary Kane of the Washington Independent does an amazing takedown of David Brooks.  

In her article entitled, "Good Luck to You, David Brooks," Kane cuts Mr. Brooks down to size, not with an axe, but rather with a scalpel, and maybe a little Novocaine.  Join me below the fold for details.