Matt Yglesias

36 Responses to “More Brooks Elaborations Needed”

1. El Cid Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am

   Sure, they lack expertise, and they’re intellectually unfit to govern, but Obama is no longer entertaining David Brooks because Obama actually seems to care about policies which are popular among Democrats, so, you know, we still should elect John McCain. (Also, 9/11!, says Goldberg.)

2. Jake Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:42 am

   MY,

   Any insight into what’s going on with Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic? It’s like he’s been hit by a bus – one post yesterday, none today.

   I’ve seen rumors he’s being fired or suspended by The Atlantic. Either would seem to be a gross miscalculation.

3. Petey Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:43 am

   “If prominent conservatives think Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern and the party lacks experts, that seems noteworthy”

   Naming Brooks as a “prominent conservative” is like naming Mickey Kaus as a prominent liberal…

4. Petey Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:46 am

   “Any insight into what’s going on with Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic? It’s like he’s been hit by a bus – one post yesterday, none today. I’ve seen rumors he’s being fired or suspended by The Atlantic. Either would seem to be…”

   …cause for a party.

   The Peretz brigade really is a cancer on Washington.

5. David Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:52 am

   Would they really get rid of Sullivan? I would find that suprising.

6. Jake Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:57 am

   The Petey brigade really is a cancer on the blogosphere.

   Fixed.

7. superdestroyer Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:57 am

   Brooks is arguing that the Republicans have given up on any idea of how to change government. The Republicans are running as the anti-Democrats without a single new proposal.

   Also, since no one who worked in the Bush Administration is fit to work in govvernment anymore, McCain lacks the potential political appointtes to fill of the the positions in the new administration.

8. Ted Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am

   In re: Brooks, Matt of course realizes that Brooks is playing a deep game. On the one hand, he has to look like a Republican sympathizer, because that’s the “identity group” that he’s supposed to represent on chat shows.

   On the other hand, he has to not look like a complete idiot.

   Reconciling those two imperatives is a real poser.

9. Tyro Says:
   September 9th, 2008 at 11:02 am

   superdestroyer, just because no one from the Bush Administration is fit to work in government anymore doesn’t mean that they won’t, nevertheless, still serve in government.

10. Ted Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    In re: the Atlantic . . . I’m not sure they really understand how blogs work.

    If these rumors are accurate, the lesson of the last couple days would appear to be that the MSM is really *not* ready to see liberal (or even “excitable” center-right) points of view expressed openly in their pages and on their airwaves. It’s okay if you’re Fox, because we don’t expect anything better of dingbat right-wing nationalists. But the left and the center are supposed to remain gravely impartial at all times.

    Screw that. Gravely impartial journalism gave us Bush. I’m going to read Yglesias and TPM, and the Atlantic can go gravely to its final resting place.

11. David Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:11 am

    Matt if Sullivan is having issues with the Atlantic, I can completely see why you left. I was skeptical of you coming here because of the 501 whatever regulations, but if you saw this coming props to you.

12. E. O'Neal Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:19 am

    Brooks is like a Republican-appointed Supreme Court Justice who “grows” in office. His colleagues and audience are overwhelmingly liberals, so he starts writing stuff that they’ll applaud. As if Pelosi, Reid and Obambi are intellectually fit to govern! Maybe BHO could recruit a few of the geniuses from Daily Kos or the old gang from Chicago.

13. Don Williams Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:22 am

    I think what Brooks is tactfully referring to is that almost every Republican leader –intellectual as well as political — has been exposed as being either a lying shithead or a hopeless moron.

14. Don Williams Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:30 am

    But maybe I’m wrong. Let’s go ask Newt Gingrich to explain to us again how the “Free Enterprise System” works and of how elected Republicans were going to get “government off the backs of the people”.

    I would be happy if Gingrich could get that $5 Trillion in additional debt off my back — and that additional $5 Trillion in Fannie/Freddie liabilities.

    Come to think of it, let’s ask Newt to explain to us again why Republicans are “Fiscal Conservatives”.

    And let’s ask Alan Greenspan if we should give the richest 1 percent of the USA another $2 Trillion tax cut so that we don’t have such a huge federal surplus in 2010.

15. El Cid Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am

    You’re all looking at this wrong — the point is not that Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now — the point is that they’re PHYSICALLY fit to govern right now!!!

16. les Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:33 am

    If he elaborated, it would make it more difficult to go on and say McCain should be elected anyway, because SHUT UP, that’s why. It’s a continuation of his mantra that the Dems are too partisan when they won’t just agree to whatever Bushco wants. Or his conceit that he knows the common man, and gosh!, he believes exactly what BoBo does! Looking for thought or logic from Brooks is a fruitless effort–he’s a complete fake.

17. anonymiss Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:36 am

    Republicans have major problems right now because the world has changed since the 1960’s and 1970’s when Republicans broke from the Eisenhower tradition and established their party’s current identity. Today, more people’s lives are being adversely impacted by actual problems that they can’t solve themselves: the cost of health care, traffic, the cost of energy, the cost of higher ed, pollution, the outsourcing of entire industries, and a need for a regulatory overhaul in the financial markets.

    Republicans don’t have any actual solutions to these problems.

    The challenge for Republicans is that conservatism is a message fundamentally created to appeal to white flight: we won’t do anything. Back then, many middle class people’s lives were improving, and their biggest concern was that someone would change the status quo and they’d be knocked off this good path. The only one of their challenges that really demanded collective action was schools for their kids. And Republicans had a clear message on that: neighborhood schools. We’ll keep your schools cheap and good by making sure that kids who are hard to educate (or kids whose ethnicity you don’t like) aren’t in them because they can’t live in your community.

    Domestically, the Republicans overwhelmingly formed themselves as the party of “we’ll put a stop to the Democrats and their meddling solutions to so-called problems. Things are getting better! We need to not change anything.”

    And for 30-40 years, it pretty much worked on the federal level. They kicked back a little money to middle class people through lower taxes…and that’s about it. They overwhelmingly didn’t challenge the entitlement programs (Medicare & Social Security) that middle class people used, and Bush even expanded Medicare. They provided significant domestic economic stimulus by deficit spending on defense.

    They were a party for people with no problems, and for a majority of Americans they promised to keep things basically as they were. (For the upper class, of course, they promised dramatic change–massive tax breaks.)

    The problem for the Republicans, of course, is that you can only coast for so long. Some of the bad decisions they made–like their fiscal irresponsibility–are having consequences, and for other problems it’s just that the world is changing and we need to adjust.

    That’s why today Republicans have election experts and PR experts, but very few actual problem-solving experts. It’s not what they do. Which is fine when a near-majority think the problems the country faces should be addressed on an individual level and a majority think the country is on the right track–but when a supermajority think it’s not…well, don’t be surprised when they try to make every electoral conversation less about solutions and more about moose hunting or heroic military service in the 1960’s.

18. jonnybutter Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:43 am

    On the one hand, he has to look like a Republican sympathizer, because that’s the “identity group” that he’s supposed to represent on chat shows.
    On the other hand, he has to not look like a complete idiot.
    Reconciling those two imperatives is a real poser.

    I’d say it’s different from that. Brooks has to *be* a Republican sympathizer, and he is, no matter what. So, to reconcile that and not looking like a total idiot, he has to go super-meta (as is his wont anyway). For example, I have watched McCain closely, and I don’t remember his having anything resembling a coherent plan or even approch to affect structural change in DC. Brooks’ suggesting that he does is just a pundit trick: it’s primarlly there to make his little syllogism work, and, more importantly, it slyly gives unwarranted credit to McCain (”The McCain promise of change is comprehensive and vehement, though it’s hard to know how it would actually work in office.” Yeah, it’s so ‘comprehensive’ that nobody knows what the hell it is). Mission accomplished: the sad old fool looks less ridiculous and Brooks looks less like a crude idiot.

    Brooks wants to be Kevin Phillips or Wm F. Buckley, but he has the misfortune to live at the end of the Conservative Moment rather than at the beginning – with evidence rather than theorizing. He also has to defend a parliamentary GOP, with lock-step discipline, etc., something which appalled even Buckley.

19. The Other Steve Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 11:50 am

    Interesting, when I click onthe nytimes link I get a GoDaddy page saying the web domain has been parked.

20. Roger Chittum Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    I don’t understand Brooks’ lament about a talent shortage. There must be at least 100,000 Republicans as expert as Sarah Palin.

21. E. O'Neal Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Roger Chittum, our number 2 has a better resume and is better spoken than your number 1. Obama has accomplished NOTHING besides writing memoirs and getting elected. If his sperm donor dad had been Hungarian and his name were Zoltan Kurdag, would the Dems have given this empty suit their nomination?

    Comparing experience and accomplishments is not a door you morons should want to open.

22. jonnybutter Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

    You’re right, O’Neal! I’m a moron and so is Roger! You have such incredible powers of persuasion. ZOLTAN KURDAG! Oh, touche!

23. E. O'Neal Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    johnnybutter, in your post, you call people “fool” and “idiot”, so I was just trying to fit in. The IQ level here is a bit lower than I’m used to, but you make up for it with arrogant condescension — sort of like the empty suit you’re going to vote for.

24. Devo Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    Maybe I’m just a skeptic, but I think Brooks is simply pushing McCain to indicate he’ll have a more bipartisan administration, while making the case for the press to take such claims seriously. Of course, it’s B.S. — but Chris Matthews grilled a campaign spokesperson about this the other day, asking him to “commit” to inviting Democrats and independents into the administration. To my jaded eye, this is just another case of Brooks humping G.O.P. water (I mean, did you see his reactions to convention speeches on P.B.S.?!?).

25. Nordy Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    Just take a look at the enrollment of your public policy graduate schools across the country. In my class of 55 at Duke, only 2 identified as Republicans. And I don’t think you’d call Duke particularly liberal.

26. jonnybutter Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

    johnnybutter, in your post, you call people “fool” and “idiot”, so I was just trying to fit in. The IQ level here is a bit lower than I’m used to, but you make up for it with arrogant condescension — sort of like the empty suit you’re going to vote for.

    I called McCain a sad old fool, because it is sad and foolish to relinquish your very dignity the way McCain has, just to win one more election. It’s sad and foolish to, at the age of 72, make a 180 degree turn on so many basic issues – including TORTURE, for god’s sake – and render the words ‘honesty’ ‘integrity’, ’straight talk’, etc etc. mere jokes. It really is a sad spectacle.

    Of course you didn’t comprehend the part of my comment with the word ‘idiot’ in it, so you can just read it again.

    BTW, I’m just a ‘moron’, O’Neal. How can I be arrogant and condesending?
    Amazing how people like you can dish out the most nonsensical and insulting stuff, but pretend to get so *sensitive* when it’s your turn to take it.

    Getting nervous about this election? You should be. Even in the unlikely event that McCain wins it, he’s going to have to deal with a very different congress than Dubya did. The party’s over….

27. El Cid Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

    Nordy: The reason you have so few Republicans in your public policy graduate education (even at Duke) is because Republicans know you don’t need no weak, arugula, foreign effeminate “public policy” graduates, you just need to have disciplined nimrods bullsh*t about small towns, give contracts to their cronies, and publicly make fun of anyone who seems to advocate thinking things through before flinging hammers at problems they like while ignoring problems they don’t, and they know they can just run away when the debris and debts pile up too much.

    Anyone who don’t agree with that is a gay, latte-swillin’ big gubmit tax & spend socialist.

28. E. O'Neal Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

    johnnybutter, I’m pleased that you acknowledge being a moron. Perhaps that’s why you think arrogant condescension and moronism are mutually exclusive mental states. Actually, they’re not, as proved by your post.

    Damn, that was fun!

29. jonnybutter Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    Damn, that was fun!

    Knock yourself out, dude.

30. mrspeel Says:
    September 9th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    On one of the cable news channels the other day, someone stated that Bush had pretty much run through all the Republican “experts” during his 8 years in office, so if McCain is elected, he’d have no choice but to have a bi-partisan cabinet. I’m sorry I can’t remember who said it though.

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