Wright Debates David Brooks: Curing the GOP Cancer

Now this is interesting in light of Brook's criticism of Palin. It certainly seems like Palin's populism is forced on her by the McCain advisors in their never ending search to avoid any whiff of partisanship. McCain's own Maverick reformer image is almost a text book populist appeal as is his railing againt Wall Street greed and unfettered capitalism.  McCain is the one much more likely to have the knee jerk reaction of having government step in and protect the little guy from big business. Palin is much more predisposed to the Reaganesque "government is the problem" theory.

Brooks says that "Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas...but there has been a counter, more populist tradition (that is) a scorn to ideas. I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices." Now this is a stunning disconnect on Brooks' part when you consider that Palin is quick to name Ronald Reagan (and Margaret Thatcher) as someone she models her ideas from while McCain is quick to mention Reagan only when he disagreed with him.

And on experience, Brooks manages to overlook this little issue with Obama, who he calls "dazzling." Consider this stunning statement about Obama:

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

Now I don't know about you, but if the choice of who represents the cancer on the Republican Party is a governor who is capable of shooting her own food or an elitist journalist with the same strange proclivities as Chris Matthews, I think the answer is clear. Maybe a little more Atlas Shrugged and a little less Niebuhr would be helpful here.

But the jaw dropping comments continued:


And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

What is seems clear from these comments is that Brooks is the quintessential elitist. What he considers brilliance is simply agreeing with him. What he considers experience is simply having the same experiences he has had. This is a great exercise in theorizing how it is that the Republican party has a nominee that has so little in common with the base voters of that party. By simply deconstructing what Brooks has just said, it is clear that in his mind HE is the base and we are simply a bunch of hicks no doubt clinging to our guns and religion.

The irony of Brook's theories about Palin are rich. It is exactly the inside the beltway mindset that produced McCain and Obama as the respective nominees. Together, they give the nation the most populist choice ever.  Between them, have absolutely no executive experience.  I think a case could be made that it is the thinking of Brooks, not Palin, who represents the cancer on the Republican party. Afterall, it is this kind of thinking that produced a choice of inexperienced populists while complaining about Palin's inexperience and populism.