David Brooks has gotten a huge amount of attention from some of the right people for his really egregious self-serving self-portrait in yesterday's Times, earning a notable scolding from Jonathan Chait and a wonderful parody by Atrios.
As you probably have heard by now, Brooks is doing one of his two-roads-diverged numbers, addressed to an imaginary young writer who wants to grow up to be Brooks; he divides the world of writers on politics and policies into two classes: the "engaged", by which he actually means rabid partisan hacks like Paul Krugman, and the "detached", or transcendent sages like his oh-so-humble humility professor self.
The only thing I have to add to the discussion is to note that this is just four days after a column in which Brooks predicts the failure of Obamacare in terms that could virtually have been read aloud from the Republican talking points sheet for the weekend, i.e., provides an example of partisan hackery that is indistinguishable from what Mitch McConnell's chief of staff might have said.
Which is not to say that Brooks is a partisan hack. He can do partisan hack pretty well, as he showed especially during his tenure at the Weekly Standard, except for the math anxiety issues that sometimes affect his judgment, but it's not his only shtik. What he's engaged in in this column is denial.
Or, as Driftglass puts it,
As you probably have heard by now, Brooks is doing one of his two-roads-diverged numbers, addressed to an imaginary young writer who wants to grow up to be Brooks; he divides the world of writers on politics and policies into two classes: the "engaged", by which he actually means rabid partisan hacks like Paul Krugman, and the "detached", or transcendent sages like his oh-so-humble humility professor self.
The only thing I have to add to the discussion is to note that this is just four days after a column in which Brooks predicts the failure of Obamacare in terms that could virtually have been read aloud from the Republican talking points sheet for the weekend, i.e., provides an example of partisan hackery that is indistinguishable from what Mitch McConnell's chief of staff might have said.
Which is not to say that Brooks is a partisan hack. He can do partisan hack pretty well, as he showed especially during his tenure at the Weekly Standard, except for the math anxiety issues that sometimes affect his judgment, but it's not his only shtik. What he's engaged in in this column is denial.
Or, as Driftglass puts it,
Did I mention that this is all coming out of the face hole of the same guy who literally bought himself a mansion with the proceeds of a professional lifetime spent pimping one crackpot Republican idea after another?
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| The road less traveled. Via People Polarity. |
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