Free Republic

Democrats are reportedly planning to raise $125 million for a campaign to sell Obamacare to the voting public. Apparently, the idea is that what 50-plus presidential speeches and statements and months of congressional debate could not do can be done by spending $125 million on everything from TV ads to community organizers. Maybe. But there seems to be a more fundamental problem here. The Obama Democrats didn’t set out to produce an unpopular stimulus package, an unpopular health-care bill, and an unpopular cap-and-trade scheme. They thought these initiatives would be popular. In their view, history is a story of progress...

The New York Times token resident conservative, occupying the Larry Craig distinguished columnist chair, recently wrote a fascinating article (Two Theories of Change) on the differences between the French Revolution and the American revolution, based upon the differences between their respective philosophical bases. As usual, it is concise, contains a wealth of material, and draws from a wide variety of sources. Also, as usual, it is completely wrong: this piece virtually cries out for a Fisking. Let's start with the first two paragraphs, to get off on the wrong foot(*)."When I was in college I took a course in the...

David Brooks seemed to be having a coherency challenged moment during his latest scheduled conversation with fellow New York Times columnist, Gail Collins. First Brooks excused what Connecticut senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal falsely claimed about being a Vietnam combat veteran as an "accident": As for Blumenthal, my guess is he survives his little brush with mendacity. The Connecticut Democrat accidentally said he was a combat veteran, when in fact he never served in Vietnam. Could happen to anyone! A moment later, Brooks reversed course and admitted that Blumenthal lied but, eh, no big deal: The claim is dishonorable, but everybody...

This probably confirms that the Utah GOP did the right thing eliminating Senator Bob Bennett, because RINO so called conservative David Brooks thinks it's a 'damn outrage'...(Video)

Roughly a century ago, many Swedes immigrated to America. They’ve done very well here. Only about 6.7 percent of Swedish-Americans live in poverty. Also a century ago, many Swedes decided to remain in Sweden. They’ve done well there, too. When two economists calculated Swedish poverty rates according to the American standard, they found that 6.7 percent of the Swedes in Sweden were living in poverty. In other words, you had two groups with similar historical backgrounds living in entirely different political systems, and the poverty outcomes were the same. (snip) This is not to say that policy choices are meaningless....

David Brooks is on a search to find out how it was that we elected such a “moderate” president and wound up with the worst of big government liberalism and a polarized electorate. He seems stumped as he explores these questions in what can only be described as evasive phrasing: "The country had just elected a man who vowed to move past the old polarities, who valued discussion and who clearly had some sympathy with both the Burkean and Hamiltonian impulses. He staffed his administration with brilliant pragmatists whose views overlapped with mine, who differed only in that they have...

Hey Dave, the only biggers Gamblers are the people who voted for Obama on Election Day. Brooks: The White House has said we're all in, they're betting their whole Presidency on getting this thing passed...It's very easy to see how this thing goes down...What strikes me at the end of the day is that we've elected another riverboat gambler, President Obama is risking his Presidency on a 50/50 chance, would you risk your house on a 50/50 chance? I wouldn't"

Today Matt Patterson takes on The New York Times’ David Brooks for his infatuation with Obama and the “limits of [Brooks’] understanding.” The jumping off point for his piece at Big Government is Brooks’ “continued fascination” with Obama’s perfectly creased pants. So let us jump off Obama’s lap and begin this discussion with a bit of history. You are likely not aware that trousers with creases were once sneered at. They announced to everyone that your pants were “store bought” — creased from sitting on a store shelf, a sign they were factory-made and of inferior quality. Those weren’t “creases”...

A series of longitudinal studies, begun decades ago, are producing a rosier portrait of life after retirement. These studies don't portray old age as surrender or even serenity. They portray it as a period of development – and they're not even talking about uber-oldsters jumping out of airplanes. One of the keys to healthy aging is what George Vaillant of Harvard calls "generativity" – providing for future generations. Seniors who perform service for the young have more positive lives and better marriages than those who don't. As Vaillant writes in his book Aging Well, "Biology flows downhill." We are naturally...

There is a specter haunting America: the specter of a saner, updated version of Ross Perot. He is lurking out there, ready to ride the free-floating anger and distrust of Washington. He is out there now in one of his homes or private jets, getting madder by the day. He is large of ego, full of money and cranky in mien. When he enters the arena, he’ll say that Washingtonians, all of them, are a bunch of failures. Over the past five years, Washington has tried to reform Social Security, immigration, health care and energy policy. All of these efforts...

t didn't take long for the critics to come out in force -- and on YouTube -- against the Obama administration's just-leaked plan to propose a three-year freeze in discretionary, "non-security" spending as part of the upcoming budget. Some Democrats scoffed at the idea, calling it the wrong approach during a time of deep economic recession. Republicans depicted it as a political gambit destined to be shot down by a non-compliant Congress. One particularly tough attack, however, was delivered in Obama's own words -- in the form of a video compilation showing the president scoffing at just such a proposal...

On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died. This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story... The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries...

David Brooks notes that in the last year, something dire has happened: The public has turned decisively against the "educated classes" and all of their works. At the same time, it has also moved against Barack Obama, who began his term with approval ratings that bumped up against 70, and have now sunk to the high to mid-40s, with "strongly disapprove" ratings that rival those of George W. Bush at his worst. It has also moved strongly against his — and the educated classes' — ideas. It is more pro-life, more anti-climate change, more free market, less statist, more inclined...

David Brooks notes that in the last year, something dire has happened: The public has turned decisively against the "educated classes" and all of their works. At the same time, it has also moved against Barack Obama, who began his term with approval ratings that bumped up against 70, and have now sunk to the high to mid-40s, with "strongly disapprove" ratings that rival those of George W. Bush at his worst. It has also moved strongly against his -- and the educated classes' -- ideas. It is more pro-life, more anti-climate change, more free market, less statist, more inclined...

The United States opens this decade in a sour mood. First, Americans are anxious about the future. Sixty-one percent of Americans believe their country is in decline, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey. Only 27 percent feel confident that their children's generation will be better off than they are. Second, Americans have lost faith in their institutions. During the great moments of social reform, at least 60 percent of Americans trusted government to do the right thing most of the time. Now, only a quarter have that kind of trust. The country is evenly divided about President...

Band of Brooks Brothers Malcolm A. Kline, January 7, 2010 When you make a rapid ascent from college classroom to metro newsroom, you may miss a lot. Plucked from the University of Chicago by none other than William F. Buckley himself to toil at National Review, David Brooks then made a dazzling climb up the editorial ladder to where he is perched today at the New York Times. In the course of his career, he might have overlooked some pivotal trends in America. “The public is not only shifting from left to right,” he wrote in a recent column. “Every...

Among the many issues we focus on within the pages of this blog are the worthiness – or lack thereof – of the elites here in America and elsewhere in the Western world. It is our contention here at the Hayride that elite status must be maintained through merit and quality; if elites do not reflect the best values and traditions of a society then either they aren’t actually the elites or the society as a whole is in the process of rejecting its best values and traditions – with steep decline an inevitable result.

Mr. BROOKS: Well, we did have Afghanistan, which is sort of bipartisan. I do think when he gets his substantive policy grounds correct, you can actually create bipartisanship. I probably am the squishiest conservative on the face of the earth, but even I couldn't stomach the stimulus bill or the health-care bill. So, the policy just wasn't there for any kind of centrist alternative.

McCain standard bearer and “conservative” columnist David Brooks launched his own salvo at actual conservative Sarah Palin on ABC’s This Week, joining other bitter RINOs who have attacked the former Alaska governor in recent days. If I may channel Chandler Bing for a moment: “Can he be any more elitist?” Perhaps Brooks hasn’t seen the Amazon sales lists, the thousands attending her book signings, or, for that matter, the book sales list published by his own worthless rag. Remember, folks, this is the same guy who talked about how great John McCain was as a candidate and the very same...

Here is video of David Brooks on ABC's "This Week" saying Sarah Palin is a "joke" and calling her a "potential talk show host." Brooks said "I just can't take her seriously" and said "the idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me it will never happen." (Video)