Free Republic

According to the New York Times’ David Brooks, Republican hardliners against tax increases are turning the GOP into a “psychological protest” rather than a “normal political party.” Brooks is upset that after having forced Democrats to come far closer to their position on taxes and spending in order to cut a deal to extend the national debt ceiling, there is little chance the House majority will embrace what he considers to be “the deal of the century.” To Brooks, the Democrats’ offer on the debt ceiling is the “Mother of All No-Brainers,” and his anger at the GOP’s insistence that...

On Friday’s “NewsHour” on PBS, New York Times columnist David Brooks was critical of the notion of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing a joint session of Congress due to the politicization of the state of Israel. “I think it’s a political disaster,” Brooks said. “It’s a substantive disaster for the state of Israel. I think it’s political disaster for Bibi Netanyahu back home, because they’re — most Israelis are really worried about the state of the relationship. It’s different than the past times, in part because it’s — as Mark said, it’s partisan now. Suddenly, Republicans are pro-Israel. And...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) JUDY WOODRUFF, PBS NEWSHOUR: At one of the Scott Walker events this week, former New York Mayor, David, Rudy Giuliani made a statement that has gotten a lot of attention. He basically — he talked about President Obama and said, “He wasn’t raised like we were,” talking to the group. He said, “He doesn’t love this country as we do.” It’s gotten a lot of attention. Do we — how big a deal is it? DAVID BROOKS: Well, it’s — you know, it’s unacceptable. You can’t say that. He doesn’t know that. It’s not true. It’s self-destructive. There’s sort...

Mitchell criticized Obama for leaning over backwards to be philosophical days after it was found out that a captured Jordanian pilot was burned alive by ISIS. "You don't use the word Crusades, number one, in any context right now," Mitchell said on NBC's Meet the Press today. "It's just it's too fraught. And the week after a pilot is burned alive, in a video shown, you don't lean over backwards to be philosophical about the sins of the fathers. You have to deal with the issue that's in front of you or don't deal with it at all." Oddly, Mitchell's...

A few months ago, Ezekiel Emanuel had an essay in The Atlantic saying that, all things considered, he’d prefer to die around age 75. He argued that he’d rather clock out with all his powers intact than endure a sad, feeble decline. The problem is that if Zeke dies at 75, he’ll likely be missing his happiest years. When researchers ask people to assess their own well-being, people in their 20s rate themselves highly. Then there’s a decline as people get sadder in middle age, bottoming out around age 50. But then happiness levels shoot up, so that old people...

Every party in opposition goes a little crazy. For Republicans in the early Obama era, insanity took the form of the Sarah Palin spasm. Veteran politicos took the former Alaska governor seriously as a national figure. Republican primary voters nominated the likes of Todd Akin, Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle. Glenn Beck seemed important enough to hold a big rally at the Lincoln Memorial. Fortunately, serious parties eventually pull back from the fever swamps. That’s what’s happening to the Republican Party. It has re-established itself as the nation’s dominant governing party. Republicans now control 69 of 99 state legislative bodies....

DAVID BROOKS: All the models say the Republicans are likely to take over the Senate. A couple of things, one, ticket-splitting. There used to be a lot of people ticket-splitting. They would vote for a Democrat up here, Republican down there, vice versa. That just happens less. One of the reasons is, the electorate is more educated. The more educated a person, the less likely their ticket splits. [SNIP] JUDY WOODRUFF: Is that what you’re seeing? DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I actually was hoping to give the same answer. You know, the Republicans will do well in the red states. They’re...

Friday on PBS's "News Hour," syndicated columnist Mark Shields pointed out, "among young Republicans, 61 percent of Republicans -- young Republicans under the age of 30 are in favor of same sex marriage." New York Times columnist David Brooks "applauded," the GOP for "doing absolutely the right thing in withdrawing" and letting the country have its way. Brooks said "I sort of applaud the minimalism here. Sometimes you let the country have its way and you don't try to determine the shape of the country, you sort of modestly step back and let the country figure out what it believes....

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the weekÂ’s top news, including the struggle on Capitol Hill to find a resolution to the political division on the border crisis before Congress leaves for August recess, as well as how these events will affect the November election, plus the outlook for ending the war between Israel and Hamas. (AUDIO-AT-LINK)TRANSCRIPT JUDY WOODRUFF: In Washington, House Republicans were racing to pass something on the border crisis after a day of confusion and chaos on Capitol Hill Thursday. For a taste of what went on...

On Friday's broadcast of PBS's "NewsHour" New York Times columnist David Brooks and Creators Syndicate columnist Mark Shields took on the House Speaker John Boehner's lawsuit against the Obama administration, which alleges oversteps in executive authority by the Obama White House. Both acknowledged Boehner's gripe with the Obama administration had merit, but were skeptical of the lawsuit's chances. However, they both also took on the alternative offered by former Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), which was to impeach President Barack Obama. Both dismissed that course of action as well, with Brooks calling it "cloud cuckoo land."

It’s now clear that the end of the Soviet Union heralded an era of democratic complacency. Without a rival system to test them, democratic governments have decayed across the globe.... [....] The answer is to use Lee Kuan Yew means to achieve Jeffersonian ends — to become less democratic at the national level in order to become more democratic at the local level. At the national level, American politics has become neurotically democratic. Politicians are campaigning all the time and can scarcely think beyond the news cycle. Legislators are terrified of offending this or that industry lobby, activist group or...

If it’s Friday on PBS, it’s time for “conservative” pundit David Brooks to bash the real conservatives. One of his favorite targets is Sen. Ted Cruz. On Valentine’s Day, PBS anchor Judy Woodruff announced “We watched this drama play out this week, David, in Congress, which ended up in the Senate with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas essentially hanging some of his fellow Republicans out to dry. What was he trying to accomplish, and did he -- did he do it?” Brooks shot back: “Nothing says Valentine’s Day like Senator Ted Cruz, our national aphrodisiac.” Then he said the conservatives...

New York Times columnist David Brooks said Sunday that President Barack Obama has a “manhood problem” in the Middle East. “[L]et’s face it,” he said. “Obama, whether deservedly or not, does have a — I’ll say it crudely, but a manhood problem in the Middle East. Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad, somebody like Putin?” “I think a lot of the rap is unfair, but certainly in the Middle East, there’s an assumption that he’s not tough,” Brooks added during a roundtable discussion on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness ,or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Odd, isn’t it? I mean, just last Saturday,  JDOlson posted the above quote from The Great Gatsby in the comments on “Who, Really, Won the Cold War?” and next thing you know, Big Guy shows up for Easter Services wearing his Gatsby suit (the 2013 Dicaprio version). He must...

<p>The silver 2001 BMW 535i roared through Adams Morgan, occasionally screeching over the sidewalks as my accountant wrenched both hands from the wheel for another toke at the weed-pipe. "Gadzooks, man!" I shouted. "Can you keep it together for another fifteen miles, or at least outside the District limits?" We were halfway through our 35 mile journey from Bethesda to Falls Church, with enough dangerous narcotics to stun a grizzly bear in the trunk: We'd started with nine ounces of weed, six rocks of crack, a sugar jar full of blow, 36 vicodin tablets, a cage filled with live Bolivian arrow toads, and two jars of ketamine. Plus two quarts of Beefeater gin, a case of Schlitz malt liquor, and a four ounce ball of Afghan hash: Surely enough to get this pair of degenerate drug addicts to Fall's Church. After that what man could say?</p>

You'd think it's nearly April Fools' Day, not Christmas. For four years running, I've closed the holiday season with a column saying “bah, humbug” to the year's worst op-eds. Christmas came early this year, thanks to perennial contender David Brooks. In Thursday's New York Times, Brooks offered a bold panacea for the problems of our time: We need to “Strengthen the Presidency.” It might strike you as counterintuitive to imagine that a president with a drone fleet, a “kill list,” dragnet databases of Americans' personal information and increasingly arbitrary authority over health care's one-sixth of the U.S. economy has too...

Besides Ross Douthat, is there anyone left on the New York Times op-ed page who doesn’t support benign dictatorship in the name of reducing congressional gridlock? Brooks evidently does. Tom Friedman, who’s been drooling on himself for years over China’s can-do model of government, certainly does. I don’t know if Timothy Egan’s ever squarely addressed the issue but a guy who thinks O’s big problem is that his speeches aren’t flowery enough must be open to persuasion.

<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...