"First: Be the Snowball. The conventional view is that Feb. 5 is going to be the decisive day of the race, when California, New Jersey, Illinois and a bunch of other states will probably have their primaries. That’s wrong..." Gosh, my presidential campaign should have momentum and win early primary states!? Thanks, David Brooks!
"Fourth: Be the Change. You are running to lead a traumatized party. Many Republicans think their party can recover from recent setbacks by returning to the old verities: cutting spending, cutting taxes, attacking government bureaucrats..." David Brooks thinks Republicans should act less like Republicans, and here at least I'm inclined to agree.
"Sixth: Get Ready for Phase II. Over the next several months, the surge in Iraq will dominate debate. But by late summer, the surge will either have succeeded or failed. A new, broader debate will start. One candidate will define the landscape by coming up with a new Grand Strategy for the war against extremism. Be that guy." Christ, what to say? He actually capitalizes "Grand Strategy" and I'm pretty sure he's not being ironic. You know what would have been a really effective "Grand Strategy" after 9/11? Read David Brooks' column every week, memorize his recommendations, and don't do them. This man bears no small personal responsibility for the war in Iraq, yet manages to act like not only does the war not have anything to do with him, but he's actually in a position to give advice about it! Here's a nice compilation of some choice Brooks Iraq predictions. You can watch him argue here that the surge is going to benefit John McCain politically if it succeeds and if it fails. But Brooks opposes it. But he thinks if we'd done it three years ago, then it would have worked, just like John McCain said. But he doesn't mind that John McCain supports it now. . And even though the surge is a bad idea, anyone who thinks we should pull out of Iraq is still a coward. Well, I have a prediction of my own. By late summer, the surge will have failed, and David Brooks will still not take any responsibility for the disaster that is Iraq.
"Seventh: Win the T.R. Primary. Many of you admire Theodore Roosevelt. You’ve got his picture on your walls. Every day, as the campaign madness swirls around, wake up and ask, Would T.R. be proud of what I’m doing? If not, take a risk. Do something else." I'm always amused by Republicans claiming the mantle of Roosevelt or Lincoln. Are the presidential primary candidates going to break up the big trusts? Massively expand America's national forests? End slavery like Lincoln did? The only T.R. policy that Republicans are likely to follow is deposing the leaders of weaker countries because we don't like their policies. And um... well, that's been tried by a modern Republican president.
7 comments:
Are you who I think you are?
Oui.
Heh, good stuff. New bookmark for me! This is also good, because I can read your posts and hear them in your characteristic sarcastic tone, which increases their entertainment value.
You aren't even my first comment!
That bit about David Brooks saying that the surge helps McCain regardless of its success or failure caused my eyes to cry blood.
In fairness, though, I think it's fitting to note that most of the stuff published by the NYTimes editorial staff is pretty bad, regardless of political affiliation. Maureen Dowd and Bob Herbert are brilliant in that they've found a million different ways to say the same thing every day.
True enough. I wish John Tierney was still a regular columnist. He once devoted an entire column to how men are genetically prone to golfing because it reminds them of the hunt. The subheading was: Is golf the modern version of Pleistocene hunting on the savanna?
But at least Herbert chooses important things to say over and over again! Every time I read a Dowd column, I begin in the vain hope that it won't be about something totally inane, but I have yet to be successful. Really, it's too bad Ehrenreich didn't take them up on their offer to be a permanent columnist.
Also, I can't believe that you regularly subject yourself to Brooks' columns, or that you did so with Tierney's. Yech.
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