[NYT's David] Brooks Struggles to Figure Out What Went Wrong (w/ "moderate centrist" Obama admin)

Commentary Magazine ^ | April 23, 2010 | Jennifer Rubin

[2ndDivisionVet]

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 more faith in technocratic planning.

Yet things have not worked out for those of us in the broad middle. Politics is more polarized than ever. The two parties have drifted further to the extremes. The center is drained and depressed.

What happened?

History happened. The administration came into power at a time of economic crisis. This led it, in the first bloom of self-confidence, to attempt many big projects all at once. Each of these projects may have been defensible in isolation, but in combination they created the impression of a federal onslaught."

History happened? Oh, let’s see if we can’t be more precise than that. “As government grew [by itself? did someone grow it?], the antigovernment right mobilized. This produced the Tea Party Movement — a characteristically raw but authentically American revolt led by members of the yeoman enterprising class.” History happened and government grew. (Like magic!) And now Brooks is disappointed.

Brooks writes that the Democratic party did this and that, that opposition grew, and that we wound up in the big- vs. little-government debate. What’s missing from this autopilot version of politics? Hmm … could it be Obama, the moderate fellow, who did the government-growing?

I have a rule of thumb: when a writer, especially a good one, excessively uses evasive or convoluted rhetoric, he is hiding something. Let’s try this: Obama, a very liberal politician, was smart enough to know he couldn’t win the presidency as a hard leftist. He posed as a moderate. New York Times columnists sung his praises. Pundits assured us that he was beyond ideology, a sort of philosopher-king with very neat pants. He got into office. He governed from the far Left. The president signed bill after bill, spending money we didn’t have and running up the debt. Obama insisted on a mammoth health-care bill the country hated. He egged Congress on to pass it. Meanwhile, the country recoiled. They hired a moderate on advice of pundits and media mavens and got a far-Left liberal, a ton of debt, an expanded federal government, and a slew of new taxes.

How’s that?

The bottom line: history doesn’t just “happen.” Presidents make choices. Pundits make miscalculations. Voters exact revenge. It’s not that complicated — if you are honest about who did what to whom.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

Look

Read

Listen about Obama:

You’ll be stunned and amazed.

Communism in America by a foreign born Marxist -— would could ever imagine such a thing happening???

With a mentor, at 10 years old, who had a 600 page FBI file, how could it not happen???

And now we find Grandpa Stanley had a FBI file too?

What does that mean? They had a file on him cuz he was selling furniture????????? Ya think???

THink:

Pop met Mom in RUSSIAN class !!! Son gave his two AA daughters RUSSIAN names (don’t tell me one is Hawaiian -— I looked into it two years ago and all the references, I mean all, said Malia was a shortened Russian name -— now NONE of them say so. Scrubbed! Amazing!!! Know a single Hawaiian with this name? One??? and Natasha - even Rocky and Bullwinkle know what that is. Know any AA with children named Natasha??? Even one???????))

Grandfather and Father and StepFather ALL Marxists: (riccy44 postings at American Thinker)

Statements by Dr Drew and Tom Fife.

Can you now believe what has come out in the last 2 years, all of it stepped on by the TV and Newspapers ???

I hate to say it but Pravda is now doing a better job than we are of honestly reporting the stories as they come out, and telling us to “watch out”!!!

As a poster just stated the world risks a new dark age.

[DontTreadOnMe2009]

He staffed his administration with brilliant pragmatists whose views overlapped with mine

no

he staffed his administration with thugs and thieves

just like he himself is.

And those punks Ayers and Dohrn, his BFF

take a look for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRg9il_V328&feature=related

[nathanbedford]

David Brooks cannot honestly claim ignorance in exculpation for getting "history" is so flagrantly wrong. Brooks surely is not unacquainted with with Saul Alinsky neither can he conceivably be unacquainted with Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, a manifesto written as a primer for acolytes such as Barack Obama became, to accomplish the deconstruction of America so that the radical leftist revolution can be put in place. The primer explicitly exhorts his followers, among whom Barack Obama became such an enthusiast that he was commissioned to train others, in the arts of revolution and the virtues of lying, deception, demonization and and many other black arts, calculated to cheat Americans out of their birthright.

By virtue of his standing as a pundit for the holiest of holies, The New York Times, Brooks was charged as part of his profession to be aware of all this. Anyone who rises to the belfry of that exalted, elitist tower is charged with knowledge of how communists historically have worked and with knowledge of their disdain for honor. There is no honor to them because they reject the system which runs on honor. Just as there is no Constitution for Barack Obama because he believes that the Constitution has produced an inequitable system. To produce equity, he believes, one must junk the system and to junk the system one must junk the Constitution and all of the expectations and assumptions honorable men infer from that document, the rule of law, the Judeo-Christian culture, and simple decency.

To someone like Barak Obama who was so committed to the radicalism of Saul Alinsky that he would rise to the level within an affiliated organization of tutoring others and then would rise even higher to train those who would train others, there is no decency beyond the "rules" of the radicalism themselves. To believe otherwise is so naïve that it could be embraced only by the anointed Rino of the New York Times.

Mr. Brooks, if you want to understand Barack Obama, either read Saul Alinsky or contemplate Aesop's parable of the scorpion and the frog. David Brooks, you are the frog.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Mr. Brooks is only a “conservative” in the context of the Manhattan, Beltway, Hampton's, cocktail circuit, jourbalist cocoon. Out here in the real world, he's **at best** a DLC/mushy moderate type.

[Canedawg]

We are in the midst of a worldwide communist coup, the likes of which Lenin could only dream of. If the United States goes down, and it’s looking dicey, it’s a new dark age for the entire globe.

This. ^

The Dims are too stupid to understand the idjit they elected is a consummate liar for whom the means justifies the ends.

[LRoggy]

[I mean all, said Malia was a shortened Russian name -— now NONE of them say so. Scrubbed! Amazing!!! Know a single Hawaiian with this name? One???]

Not to be too cheeky with that question, since the topic is legitimate but there was a Hawaiian-born woman’s professioanl wrestler named Malia Hosaka!

I’ve always thought the birth certificate issue was more because of an embarrassing revelation, not that he wasn’t born there.

Something like: Father Unknown

[9YearLurker]

And the little twit calls Palin stupid?

[bert]

.......The Dims are too stupid.....

The dims are a coalition of stupid, lazy, and perpetually scared and those who control them.

[Canedawg]

Of course, I meant to say “the ends justify the means” for Ozero. Still on my first cup of java.

[freeangel]

Brooks has yet to figure out that his american idol is nothing more than a common LIAR whose mission all along was to bring this country down.

[bravotu]

Yup,
‘Bout Sums It Up.
But do Not Be Bitter Folks.
We had a 200 yr. Run...
The Last 50 yr. has Been the Most Prosperous, Powerful,Generous and Free Nation this Planet WILL ever Know,when It is Gone.....

[DH]

Well David, you stupid idiot...Obama was a community organizer and never held any type of productive endeavor in his whole life. What would you expect from a person that built their life upon lies and deception?

Nothing went wrong. It was wrong from the start but you liberal Americana haters took wrong for right.

Now, you wonder????????????

[reasonisfaith]

Could be that Brooks was aware all along of Obama’s far left intentions.

Could be that Brooks has been as dishonest as Obama.

[griswold3]

Reminds me of the parable of the surprised woman who was bitten by the snake she sheltered from the storm...

“Why are you shocked? You knew I was a snake when you took me in!”,said the serpent.

[hal ogen]

David Brooks is a loon among loonies.

[Big Mack]

Was Brooks born stupid or did he receive massive head trauma in later life?

[Travis McGee]

[Jim Noble]

Brooks Struggles to Figure Out What Went Wrong

David, get a clue!

The pants belonged to someone else!

[reasonisfaith]

“There is no honor to them because they reject the system which runs on honor.”

I think I agree with you—the system which runs on honor is a system of honor which is legitimate, or duly earned.

The communist begins each day honoring himself and other communists, although it is an honor stolen, or pretended.

[Jim Noble]

Mushy moderates need to get the heck out of the way and let us fight this battle against the communist hordes like reid pelosi obama and their followers.

And those SAME moderates had better hope the electoral route succeeds (and by "succeed", I mean majorities in both houses of Congress committed to extirpating Leftism from our society, not just getting a few jobs for Leftists wearing Republican costumes).

If voting fails to restore the Republic, Act II will be very unpleasant.

When the Left moved to consolidate its rule in Indonesia, the rivers ran red with communist blood for days - and Indonesia doesn't have the Ohio-Missouri-Mississippi system.

We do.