Free Republic

<p>I sometimes get irked when I read columns by David Brooks. He’s sort of the token Republican at the New York Times, so he has a very important perch that could be used to educate an important audience about the harmful impact of excessive government.</p>

History didn’t end quite as soon as Francis Fukayama famously forecast. Every generation will face interesting times, it seems. But, David Brooks, the New York Times’ idea of a conservative, recently bid to team with Fukayama to seize a consolation prize.If you can’t end history, maybe you can end the American Constitutional order. That would be interesting, and pleasing to deep thinkers disappointed in Congress’s failure to pass a lot of awesome new laws. Brooks doesn’t exactly say so, but trashing the Constitution is what he advocates in his modestly titled piece: “Strengthen the Presidency.” Brooks sensitively builds his case...

On PBS’s “NewsHour” on Friday night, New York Times columnist David Brooks warned that Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and similar legislators’ rise to prominence threatens the traditional Republican Party. (Snip) “What’s going on in the House, and a bit in the Senate, too, is what you might call the rise of Ted Cruz-ism,” Brooks said. “And Ted Cruz, the senator from Canada through Texas, is basically not a legislator in the normal sense, doesn’t have an idea that he’s going to Congress to create coalitions, make alliances, and he is going to pass a lot of legislation. He’s going...

Have you ever wished that errant journalists could get their noses rubbed in their own absurdities and outright falsehoods like puppy dogs who make a mess? Well, if you had been watching Meet The Press today then you would have seen Congressman Raul Labrador of Idaho do just that to the New York Times house "conservative" David Brooks who was slapped down not once but twice.  As you can see in this video and below the fold, Brooks didn't learn his lesson after being slapped down by Labrador for uttering absurdities about the Senate immigration bill. Labrador was forced to...

Over the past few decades, American society has been transformed in a fit of absence of mind. First, we’ve gone from a low immigrant nation to a high immigrant nation. If you grew up between 1950 and 1985, you grew up at a time when only about 5 percent or 6 percent of American residents were foreign born. Today, roughly 13 percent of American residents are foreign born, and we’re possibly heading to 15 percent. Moreover, up until now, America was primarily an outpost of European civilization. Between 1830 and 1880, 80 percent of the immigrants came from Northern and...

Tuesday marks the six month anniversary of Republican Ted Cruz’s election to the United States Senate, but rather than the traditional honeymoon, the liberal media have gone on the attack against the Tea Party hero and emerging 2016 presidential candidate and his conservative beliefs. In their own liberal grassroots circles, leftists have even gone as far to openly hope for Cruz’s death, as the Daily Kos screeched: “Give this man enough rope and a tree, please.”  When former Bill Clinton political strategist James Carville, on Sunday, actually credited Cruz for being “talented and fearless,” it marked a rare moment when...

Today, liberalism seems to have changed. Today, many progressives seem to believe that government is the horse, the source of growth, job creation and prosperity. Capitalism is just a feeding trough that government can use to fuel its expansion. For an example of this new worldview, look at the budget produced by the Congressional Progressive Caucus last week. These Democrats try to boost economic growth with a gigantic $2.1 trillion increase in government spending — including a $450 billion public works initiative, a similar-size infrastructure program and $179 billion so states, too, can hire more government workers. Now, of course,...

Over the course of the 20th century, America built its welfare state. It was, by and large, a great achievement, expanding opportunity and security for millions. Unfortunately, as the population aged and health care costs surged, it became unaffordable. Public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product was around 38 percent in 1965. It is around 74 percent now. Debt could approach a ruinous 90 percent of G.D.P. in a decade... By 2025, entitlement spending and debt payments are projected to suck up all federal revenue... Ultimately, we should blame the American voters. The average Medicare couple pays $109,000...

New York Times columnist David Brooks made an astonishing observation about President Obama on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. "Sometimes he governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DAVID BROOKS, PBS NEWSHOUR: ....I think if we're going to control guns, we really have to do it massive. I think I'm all for getting rid of the assault weapons and machine guns and all that tough, but if we want to prevent something like this, we have to really think seriously about drastically reducing the number of guns in our society, and particularly -- this is an old Patrick Daniel Moynihan idea -- the number of bullets. It is very hard to control 300 million guns. The bullets are a little easier to control.

On this weekend’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist David Brooks — who was once profoundly impressed with President Barack Obama — admitted he has soured on the president.“Well, you know, I think — well, I first think it has been the worst campaign I’ve ever covered,” Brooks said. “And I think they’re both ending on the same note they started. Obama’s doing a negative campaign. He’s got an ad out which is called ‘Remember,’ which is about Obama — which is about Romney, the plutocrat. It’s about the flip-flop what we’ve just heard on the...

As America’s strategic and political position in the Middle East continues to deteriorate, President Barack Obama’s political opponents have stepped up their claims that he is an ineffective leader on foreign policy. But New York Times columnist David Brooks isn’t convinced those attacks will work. During his weekly appearance on PBS’s “NewsHour” on Friday, Brooks suggested Obama deserves a pass for remaining calm throughout the crisis, which he said puts a kind of burden on his challenger, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

New York Times columnist David Brooks is the Eddie Haskell of the Fourth Estate. Like the two-faced sycophant in "Leave It to Beaver," Brooks indulges in excessive politeness while currying favor with political authority. He prides himself on an oily semblance of maturity and rational discourse. But the phony "conservative" back-stabber, who has spent the last four years slavering over Barack Obama like a One Direction groupie and trashing the tea party like an MSNBC junkie, isn't fooling anyone. Lately, Brooks has been given to dispensing passive-aggressive advice to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. His column this week titled "Thurston...

Before the barrage of ad homs begins, ask yourself this question: why did the Romneys let themselves get sucked into this kind of talk on Meet the Press (with David Brooks) on Sunday in the first place? Why is she saying that they (the Romneys) know what it is like to struggle, and then proffer her own personal health struggles as evidence that they know what it is like to struggle? Why are they letting themselves get sucked into this.... .... because the inevitable question surfaces and arises: voters will feel empathy towards Ann Romney, but they will ask how...

I’d like to provide a Brooks-esque reintroduction to our President, a man with an always shifting and mysterious background, so that the American people can make a fully informed decision on Nov. 6th. Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961 in Hawaii, Indonesia and Kenya, depending on whether he was applying for President of the United States, a college scholarship for international students, or for a book deal about his struggle with his racial identity. He burst forth from his mother’s womb in a cloud of smoke, which may or may not have been related to the half-empty pack...

New York Times columnist David Brooks told PBS that his one “cavil” was that voters want to hear about jobs and the economy, not taxpayer-subsidized abortion on demand:

The purpose of the Republican convention is to introduce America to the real Mitt Romney. Fortunately, I have spent hours researching this subject. I can provide you with the definitive biography and a unique look into the Byronic soul of the Republican nominee: Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become...

Conservative author Glenn Beck on Sunday took to Twitter to blast New York Times columnist David Brooks for comments he made last year about the talk radio host's predictions concerning Egypt without President Hosni Mubarak. On PBS's Newshour last February, syndicated columnist Mark Shields mentioned Beck in a discussion about how people attending the CPAC convention viewed the goings-on in Egypt from a domestic political perspective: MARK SHIELDS, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, I think it is a lack of self-confidence, surefootedness. They didn`t know what they wanted to say. They weren`t sure. The only one who was really critical that I...

On Friday's PBS NewsHour, both "conservative" David Brooks and liberal Mark Shields thought this was a tough, tight election for Barack Obama. Shields said "it becomes a race about disqualifying, a campaign about disqualifying your opponent. And that's not attractive or appealing. It's not hope and change. It's blood and guts." But Brooks really felt Obama's pain: "So the president is obviously going to try. He is going to have. And to some extent, you have to feel sorry for him. This is in large degree not his fault. Things are happening way beyond his control. I don't believe a...

It might have sounded quite reasonable to David Brooks and his tight  circle of media friends but to most of the rest of us, using the term "ESPN Masculinity" to describe President Obama is just flat out hilarious. Brooks performs a comedy encore at the end of The ESPN Man story in the New York Times with his psychobabble description of Obama's "manliness." These supposed traits listed by Brooks are the reasons why he claims Obama remains somewhat popular despite a lousy economy. First, let us go right to the ESPN Man money quote: Normally, presidents look weak during periods...