David Brooks, yesterday, 11/15:
[Sarah Palin is] a joke. I mean, I just can’t take her seriously. We’ve got serious problems in the country. Barack Obama’s trying to handle war. We’ve just a had guy elected Virginia governor who’s probably the model for the future of the Republican Party, Bob McDonnell, pretty serious guy, pragmatic, calm, kind of boring. The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination – believe me, it’ll never happen. Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host.
David Brooks, 10/08:
It took [Sarah Palin] about 15 seconds to define her persona – the straight-talking mom from regular America – and it was immediately clear that the night would be filled with tales of soccer moms, hockey moms, Joe Sixpacks, Main Streeters, “you betchas” and “darn rights.” Somewhere in heaven Norman Rockwell is smiling.
[–and, from his NYT perch–]
Many people are conditioned by their life experiences to see this choice of a running mate through the prism of identity politics, but that’s the wrong frame. Sarah Barracuda was picked because she lit up every pattern in McCain’s brain, because she seems so much like himself.
The Palin pick allows McCain to run the way he wants to — not as the old goat running against the fresh upstart, but as the crusader for virtue against the forces of selfishness. It allows him to make cleaning out the Augean stables of Washington the major issue of his campaign.
Thoughtful people are welcome to change their minds. Encouraged to do so when the facts as we may know them change. What Brooks has been up to, though, is pretty clearly peddling that particular brand of NYT horseshit to the rubes whilst, simultaneously:
at a media panel for elites at the Le Cirque in New York City, Brooks denounced her anti-intellectual candidacy as a “cancer” on the Republican Party.
This sort of thing is the root of the problem with our discourse. At least in the past, it seemed you only had hearsay to go on; you suspected as much but could never hope to pin somebody on this sort of thing. Now, though, we have transcripts and often video of these sorts of brazen acts of dishonesty almost in real-time. And yet there’s still never, ever any accounting at the end of the day. Quite the opposite. Wrong on the war? Here’s a promotion, son; right on the war: You’re fired. Try not to be so shrill.
We’ve got to start unseating these people. Lou Dobbs makes a start, but is only the first of many. Elections have consequences. That Brooks didn’t learn this once and for all back in 2000 speaks volumes. He’s still playing at it like this is all some sort of elaborate parlor game that matters not at all. It’s unforgivable.
Lemkin 