The most infuriating thing about David Brooks isn’t his smug tone or the way he dismisses critics as anti-Semites from “Planet Chomsky.” What’s truly maddening is that liberals keep lapping up his thinly sourced pop sociology. Brooks has been embraced as “the conservative guy who can talk to liberals.” The former Weekly Standard scribe holds down a column at the… return to article
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Reader Comments (8)Page 1 of 1 pagesI LIKE this. It’s about time someone called him a lightweight.
Posted by Bob Wendlinger on Apr 27, 2004 at 4:30 PM I despise David “Babbling” Brooks commentary, but don’t get the point of the article.
Posted by Gil Bassak on Apr 27, 2004 at 5:05 PM I’m a liberal who used to like Brooks but now despises him. The problem with Craig’s piece is that he doesn’t show any evidence that there are any liberals left who are eagerly lapping him up. My suspicion is that there are very, very few left. But there are plenty who still lap up, say, a right-winger like John McCain.
Posted by Rick Perlstein on Apr 28, 2004 at 2:55 PM Brooks has a simple formula.
First, any criticism of this “wartime” president is providing comfort to the enemy. Second, any criticism of neocons is thinly disguised anti-semitism. To engage in discussion with him under such premises is like starting to arm-wrestle with one’s fist an inch above the table.
But now the proof in the pudding--nothing is working as planned, and our poor soldiers are paying the price of the swagger, yet NO ONE has been fired. Except the one guy--the General who was right.Austin in DC
Posted by ATS on Apr 28, 2004 at 5:26 PM As an assistant editor here at ITT, I would like to respond to Rick Perlstein’s complaint that Craig did not give examples of any liberals still lapping up Brooks’ “sociology.” Originally, he did. Due to space considerations, however, we had to cut Craig’s reference to “The New Republic“‘s Noam Schreiber, who defended Brooks against what he called Sasha Issenberg’s “takedown,” which Schreiber attributed to jealousy of heavy-hitters like Brooks and himself. That Issenberg wrote honestly, while Brooks was forced to lie to make the “facts” fit into his specious framework, apparently did not matter to Schreiber.
Posted by Brian Cook on Apr 29, 2004 at 11:16 AM Craig Aaron needs to lighten up. Does he really think liberals are lapping up David Brooks’ admittedly lite/wait “sociology”? Don’t make me laugh!! Liberals who take in Brooks are probably like my fellow Oaklander, Bob Wendlinger, inclined (as I am) to regard Brooks as more gossamer spit out by the mainstream media.
It sounds to me as if Brooks’ real sin is to diss radicals with impunity. If I invested serious cathexis on the idea that Noam Chomsky and his friends are the only people in this world with moral decency, I too would bristle at the potshots Brooks indulges in. Fortunately, I am saved from such when I remember that A) I’m a grownup and B) Chomsky & Co. are just as guilty of specious moralizing as any member of the Christian Coalition. Evidence abounds that Chomsky, at the very least, is as inclined as any NASCAR Dad to divide the world into worthy and unworthy victims (Chomsky’s own phrase).
If Brian Cook is right, I am puzzled. ITT should not have cut the material on Noam Schreiber, opting instead to cut the boilerplate statement that Brooks is a GOP flack whose job is to humor us into complacency. We already knew that.
Brooks is an amusing neo-con, no more. To think his prestigious gigs equal influence among the chattering classes is to give him more credit than he deserves. I hope ITT will deign not to post more drivel like this in future. However, given the fact that a paleo-Bolshevik like Slvoj Zizek is regularly accorde space in ITT, I’m not holding my breath, at least not to Blue stage.
Posted by Douglas Presler on May 1, 2004 at 12:34 PM It’s Slavoj Zizek, and he’s more of a quasi-pomo that a paleo-Bolshevik.
Posted by Strelnikov on May 5, 2004 at 1:40 AM Brooks was brought on board because no one reads Safire anymore. much as is the case with Krauthammer and Will. Why? Because one knows what they will write before they write it: Deplore “class warfare,” “blaming america first,” “criticizing OUR President during wartime.” and “Israel bashing.”
The Sharonistas needed a new voice with a suitably Madison Avenue look. The fact is, Brooks is just a subtler tool of the cabal. For example, like the others, he wouldn’t criticize Israel if the IDF cluster-bombed the Vatican Library on Christmas Eve.AS
Posted by ATS on May 5, 2004 at 5:11 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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