David Brooks is a lunatic. Well, either that or he’s writing his columns in bad faith, and I’d hate to accuse anyone of something so insulting as willful dishonesty. So he must just be some combination of stupid and insane!
In today’s column, Brooks starts off by espousing his own flavor of Burkean ridiculousness, I mean, elitism, I mean, philosophy. (Actually, you could probably say the same thing about 99 percent of his columns!) Anyhow, he does his little rant about how he thought McCain was going to save the GOP by reforming it. He was going to prove he could reform the United States by reforming the Republican Party. But then a funny thing happened: John McCain acted like John McCain.
Fair enough. This looks like the "I used to respect/admire McCain because he used to be honorable/mavericky" meme that I’m sick of hearing because it’s untrue and makes the false claim that New McCain is actually different than the fictionalized, mythical Old McCain. But by the standards of professional political commentators today, it would be solidly within the realm of reasonable discourse.
But then: No! It’s not McCain’s fault! It’s the GOP’s fault, and actually John McCain is still the old reformer who could never fail to reform except in this case because the Party screwed up his non-attempt to reform it but if he were President he would definitely reform the country!
McCain would be an outstanding president. In government, he has almost
always had an instinct for the right cause. He has become an
experienced legislative craftsman. He is stalwart against the country’s
foes and cooperative with its friends. But he never escaped the
straightjacket of a party that is ailing and a conservatism that is
behind the times. And that’s what makes the final weeks of this
campaign so unspeakably sad.
Got it? Because I’m not sure I do. Even though New McCain failed to run a presidential campaign or to fix his party, he’s still Old McCain and would therefore run a good Administration and fix the country? Because I’ve already forgotten that I’m so sad about all his failures that I just devoted this column to, and on a bigger stage and with infinitely higher stakes I’m just going to assume that he would do things right this time and indeed I’m going to give him credibility as if he had done the exact opposite of what he’s done in this campaign?
Accidental Blogger 
2 responses to “Lunatic Brooks (Joe)”
Commenting from Chicago O’Hare airport while waiting for my connection to Houston.
I read the Brooks opinion piece in New Delhi. I was astounded (yet not so surprised) that even after all his bumbling, grand standing, opportunistic “Palindroming,” race baiting, “terrorist” flavored robo-calling, die hards like Brooks are still looking for the “honorable maverick” in McCain’s resume.
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I think a lot of conservatives are in anticipatory face-saving mode. They want to distance themselves from McCain, without seeming to be disloyal to the party. And no one is quite sure how the Palin situation will play out…will she (to republicans) seem like “the problem”, part of the reason he failed…or “the future”, someone who can step into a leadership position (in the Rove-esque, cult-of-personality sense of the word).
So, people like Brooks are anxious about how to craft their language. They are saying many things…many of the them contradictory…in the hopes that, wherever the pieces fall, it’ll seem like they were in lock step with the party all along. “We love him. We hate him. This is the problem. That’s the problem.” Back and forth.
Desperate to seem knowledgeable, they take a shotgun approach…”if I shoot enough pellets, surely one of them will hit.”
It really is lunatic…pathetic.
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