Free Republic

New York Times columnist David Brooks often receives the scorn of many conservatives for taking positions contrary to ideology in the name of moderation and smart politics. But what did Brooks think of Herman Cain’s Web ad featuring his campaign manager smoking a cigarette at the end of it? Brooks’ impression might surprise some. In his regular appearance on Friday’s PBS “NewsHour,” host Judy Woodruff inquired about the ad and Brooks all but gave it two-thumbs up. “My heart melts for that smile,” Brooks said. “I just I like it. Everybody is going crazy, ‘Oh, it’s terrible.’ First of all,...

Despite Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain's precipitous rise in the polls, New York Times columnist David Brooks seems to think that the Republican presidential nomination is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s to lose. “It’s not a primary process. In the primary process you have several candidates and they go after each other. We don't have that. We have one plausible candidate and a bunch of other guys who are prepping him for the Obama onslaught. So, basically they attack him.”

Gail Collins: David, are you reconciled to the fact that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican presidential nominee? David Brooks: Oh, I went through that phase a few weeks ago after the debate at the Reagan library. That’s the night I noticed Romney was the best candidate in the field. Since then I’ve noticed that he has given three debate performances that are better than any Barack Obama has given in his life. (Obama’s a better speechmaker, but Romney’s a better debater.) So now I’m settling into the idea that Romney might well be president. This will be...

David Brooks admitted in his column yesterday what conservatives have long suspected: He really, really liked Obama. In fact, he’s “a sap.” Here are ten examples of his sappiness over time. 10. David Brooks thought he had a wonderful plan for poverty reduction. Why? “A neighborhood is a moral ecosystem, and Obama, the former community organizer, seems to have a . . . feel for that.” 9. In a 2009 profile of Brooks in The New Republic, the columnist describes Obama as capable of holding his own as an intellectual: “He can do the jurisprudence, he can do the political...

Let us give credit for honesty (at least temporarily) to the New York Times "conservative" columnist, David Brooks, for his brutal self-recognition of a political flaw. Brooks flat out admits that he is a sap: I’m a sap, a specific kind of sap. I’m an Obama Sap. Brooks lays out in some detail his discovery of what most of the rest of us already knew; his extreme gullibility when it comes to believing Obama: When the president said the unemployed couldn’t wait 14 more months for help and we had to do something right away, I believed him. When administration...

One thing’s for certain — Texas Gov. Rick Perry has made an impressive charge in the polls since he announced his candidacy for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination early this month. So how does a guy like Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, take him on? In an appearance on Friday’s “NewsHour” on PBS, New York Times columnist David Brooks explained that Romney will have to “do something aggressive” to remain formidable. “He has only been in the race a couple of weeks but the polls moved to a degree that is almost unprecedented. He has catapulted and catapulted...

By refusing to accept tax increases in a deal to raise the debt ceiling, Republicans are behaving like "fanatics," writes David Brooks of The New York Times. Anti-tax Republicans "have no sense of moral decency," he adds. They are "willing to stain their nation's honor" to "worship their idol." If this "deal of the century" goes down, as he calls the Barack Obama offer, "Republican fanaticism" will be the cause. "The GOP has become a cult" that has replaced reason with "feverish" and "cockamamie beliefs," writes Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. The Republican "presidential field (is) a virtual political...

You know the desperation of liberals and New York Times "conservatives" like David Brooks is starting to grow when the GOP swapping tax hikes in a down economy for an end to structural budget deficits is deemed "the mother of all no-brainers". Brooks is dead wrong, not just in fact, but we've also already settled this matter years ago....

The Republicans have changed American politics since they took control of the House of Representatives. They have put spending restraint and debt reduction at the top of the national agenda. They have sparked a discussion on entitlement reform. They have turned a bill to raise the debt limit into an opportunity to put the U.S. on a stable fiscal course. Republican leaders have also proved to be effective negotiators. They have been tough and inflexible and forced the Democrats to come to them. The Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill. They have agreed not...

Plenty of Sunday morning airtime was devoted yesterday to Sarah Palin. George Will says it's common knowledge she shouldn't be trusted with nuclear weapons. Andrew Sullivan says he's afraid she will run because there's a possibility she could beat Obama. David Brooks essentially thinks she's a joke. "Yeah. But, you know, being president is waking up, somebody hands you the crisis and said, "There's a crisis in Venezuela. What are you going to do about it?" Does any, does anybody think Sarah Palin's ready for that? I don't think so. So she can manage her brand. But running for president...

One big problem conservatives face in trying to develop and implement effective public policy is that conservative thinkers have gotten used to operating in an intellectual milieu that assumes activist government is the answer to every question. In his recent New York Times column, The Missing Fifth,” David Brooks exemplifies the point.

Dan Butler and David Broockman of Yale had a very bright idea. They mailed a series of letters to legislators in which a fictional constituent asked for help in registering to vote. Some of the letters were signed with putatively black names (like DeShawn Jackson) and some were signed with putatively white names (like Jake Mueller). The letters from the putatively black constituents received fewer responses from white legislators and received more responses from minority legislators. The really interesting finding concerns the partisan nature of the responses. There wasn’t one. Whites from both parties exhibited similar levels of discrimination against...

The March 7 Newsweek (NewsBeast) features an article titled "David Brooks Wants to Be Friends," but there's more bridge-burning than friend-making in this interview with James Atlas. Of course, he came up in Washington through conservative opinion journalism from the National Review, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and The Weekly Standard, but "something has changed." Conservatives are now more uncivil. Well, either that -- or his paychecks are now signed by PBS, NPR, and The New York Times: But Brooks insists that something has changed in the past decade. Political discourse had grown coarse, he laments. Gone is the...

If only this were a coalition of the left and the right working out differences. But alas, it’s just a coalition of mostly liberal politicians who used to label themselves by a political party and now would rather fly stealth. Sigh. If you are not familiar with “No Lables”, no worries, it’s brand new and they certainly deserve a Hat Tip for brevity. Here’s their declaration: We are not labels – we are people. We care deeply about our country. We are frustrated and concerned about the tone of politics. We are passionate about addressing America’s challenges. We are Democrats,...

DAVID BROOKS, NYT: Yes. Well, I shouldn’t have confessed this. He said this to me off the record about a year ago. But it hasn’t… JIM LEHRER: Off the record? So, then you can’t talk about it. DAVID BROOKS: Yes, because Peter Baker is a better than I am, because I couldn’t get him to go on the record with that thing. JIM LEHRER: He said this to you a year ago? DAVID BROOKS: It was obvious. I mean, you are trying to build a stimulus package. And when they were trying to build it, believe me, they would have...

(snip) Whitman is representative of an emerging Republican type — what you might call the austerity caucus. Flamboyant performers like Sarah Palin get all the attention, but the governing soul of the party is to be found in statehouses where a loose confederation of uber-wonks have become militant budget balancers. Just as welfare reformers of the 1990s presaged compassionate conservatism, so the austerity brigades presage the national party's next chapter. Mitch Daniels, the governor of Indiana who I think is most likely to win the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, is the spiritual leader. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey...

Every political movement has a story. The surging Republican Party has a story, too. It is a story of virtue betrayed and innocence threatened. Through most of its history, the narrative begins, the United States was a limited government nation, with restrained central power and an independent citizenry. But over the years, forces have arisen that seek to change America's essential nature. These forces would replace America's traditional free enterprise system with a European-style cradle-to-grave social democracy. These forces are more powerful than ever in this age of Obama. So it is the duty for those who believe in the...

If a RINO is a Republican In Name Only, let's coin a new acronym for David Brooks: RINYTO: Republican In New York Times Only. For only in the Gray Lady's bailiwick could Brooks be considered much of a Republican. Take his current column in the Times. Brooks warns Republicans on the verge of regaining power that it would be nothing short of a "tragedy" if they were to oppose . . . more government and higher taxes.

The Democrats could be heading toward a defeat of historic proportions in November, but it is possible to imagine a scenario in which things might have turned out differently:

Columnist David Brooks has a reputation for being every liberal's favorite conservative. It's a debatable moniker, but it does seem to fit so far as the White House is concerned. The Obama administration has courted centrist to left-leaning pundits since coming to Washington. White House officials regularly make advisers and experts available to liberal columnists on deadline. They've also held several off-the-record lunches with the president during major policy rollouts. Brooks is one conservative among the White House favorites. (SNIP!) Brooks' favorite soundtrack these days also seems entirely apt for the even-tempered columnist: "Sense and Sensibility."