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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 8, 2008 - 07:46pm PT
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Once again, this is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative talking:
more remarkable, as he has interviewed Obama over 20 times, and McCain much more than that. He has FIRST HAND experience with these two.
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David Brooks: Sarah Palin "Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party"
David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."
In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:
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[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.
Brooks praised Palin's natural political talent, but said she is "absolutely not" ready to be president or vice president. He explained, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."
The New York Times columnist also said that the "great virtue" of Palin's counterpart, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is that he is anything but a "yes man."
"[Biden] can't not say what he thinks," Brooks remarked. "There's no internal monitor, and for Barack Obama, that's tremendously important to have a vice president who will be that way. Our current president doesn't have anybody like that."
Brooks also spent time praising Obama's intellect and skills in social perception, telling two stories of his interactions with Obama that left him "dazzled":
Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.
And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.
Brooks predicted an Obama victory by nine points, and said that although he found Obama to be "a very mediocre senator," he was is surrounded by what Brooks called "by far the most impressive people in the Democratic party."
"He's phenomenally good at surrounding himself with a team," Brooks said. "I disagree with them on most issues, but I am given a lot of comfort by the fact that the people he's chosen are exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose if we were in his shoes. So again, I have doubts about him just because he was such a mediocre senator, but his capacity to pick staff is impressive."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvxQwNqZSOQ
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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you said...
David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."
Full of crap right out of the gate. You can argue Obama, but McCain one of the best Repub's in a long time?
Bwwahahaaahhaa!!!
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Gene
climber
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Ken M,
Just who is your target audience and do you think you are changing minds?
Nothing I read would change the point of view of anything smarter than a earthworm come voting time.
No disrespect to earthworms intended.
RGM
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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I'm an earthworm, and I approve that statement. Downtrodden earthworms, unite!
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dirtineye
Trad climber
the south
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Well, Palin DOES sound like she's thinking and speaking in junior high mode.
I really don't think that's what we need for a VP.
In fact, I feel called upon to introduce a new word to the English language:
Palindrone-- one who really really really likes Palin, in spite of what she says or does.
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dirtbag
climber
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LOL.
Interesting view Dingus. And I agree, so long as she doesn't become a VPILF or a PILF.
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just passing thru
climber
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David Brooks = RINO
He is simply the token RINO for the NYT. I believe DB was on the 'get over Reagan' trip that was going on months ago.
Get over Reagan? and what? start following Gore?
The US is STILL a "shining city upon a hill..."
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dirtbag
climber
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JPU, Brooks is right. Palin represents the dumbing down of the Republican Party.
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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I'd agree that in a lot of ways the US is still a shining city on a hill.
But that's really despite the best efforts of the neocons and greedy CEOs to undo that.
The next few years are going to be pretty damn tough. Be nice to have as smart as person as possible in charge.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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DB, more than your village idiot Bush?
You'd have to argue she's at least a step up, no? Your attempts to marginalize her are pretty bad.
"Yeah, man, she's so stupid...junior high at most". How do you think she ran a city and a state, Johnson? On looks? And taking down crooks in her party?
Your desperation shows.
stevep;
"best efforts of the neocons and greedy CEOs"
don't confuse them with real conservatives.
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dirtbag
climber
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Actually Bluering, I think she's much worse.
You know how I feel about Bush. But at least he had some ideas and had given some thought about what he would like to do as President and where the country should go. If you asked him, he would tell you.
Campaigning for a couple of years does that, and weeds out those who haven't done that.
What does Palin think about the issues of the day? When asked--unscripted--she couldn't say anything. Couric's questions were not gotchas.
That's appalling and frightening.
That's why Brooks and many other conservatives are alarmed.
BTW, I never said she was stupid, though if she is smart I haven't seen it. I'm neutral on that. I'm just not impressed by reading scripted material or cue carding her way through a debate. McCain's campaign hasn't allowed us to see the intelligence that he sees. I blame them for that. They have not done Palin or us any favors by hiding her away.
I just think she is very, very uneducated about the issues of the day. And while every president learns a lot on the job, she needs to have some ideas--and have clearly communicated those ideas--about where she thinks the country should go.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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db, I guess we'll agree to disgree.
I just watched her on on Greta Van Susteren's show too. Seemed unscripted to me, but then again it's Fox and they're not to be trusted. Prolly gave her the questions in advance, right?
What a whore!!!
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dirtbag
climber
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Frankly, yes. Okay not really. But I don't expect anything probing.
But I haven't seen it.
But I did see her interviews with Couric.
And if you haven't I recommend watching them.
You might ask yourself why she is limiting herself to Faux News though.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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I think the gist of Brooks' comments was broader than just a critique of Palin. He's saying that "conservatives" such as Bush and Palin reject intellectual thought, notwithstanding the fact the whole conservative movement was based on intellectual thought.
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just passing thru
climber
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Using Brooks’ words as anti-GOP ammo is the equivalent of a conservative holding up Joe Lieberman's words as fodder against the dems...
weak.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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A fatal Cancer?
-prevention is the best medicine.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 9, 2008 - 01:36pm PT
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"I think the gist of Brooks' comments was broader than just a critique of Palin. He's saying that "conservatives" such as Bush and Palin reject intellectual thought, notwithstanding the fact the whole conservative movement was based on intellectual thought."
Exactly right. I admire the conservatives like Brooks and Will, although I agree with little of their philosophy, in that they are willing to take a seriously hard look at the deficiencies of their side, take a stiff wire brush to it, and let the chips fall where they will......in the interests of coming up with a better party, and a better approach.
And this has been a phenominally successful approach!
The Republicans have been a minority party for a LONG time, but if you look back over the last 30 years, they have often held a huge amount of the power in this country. And that is because they have planned it out well.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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"The heels are on and the gloves are off!"
Man, I want HER to be my veep.... When monkeys fly out of my butt!
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jstan
climber
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202583_pf.html
McCain Loses His Head
By George F. Will
Tuesday, September 23, 2008; A21
"The queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said without even looking around."
 "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Under the pressure of the financial crisis, one presidential candidate is behaving like a flustered rookie playing in a league too high. It is not Barack Obama.
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that "McCain untethered" -- disconnected from knowledge and principle -- had made a "false and deeply unfair" attack on Cox that was "unpresidential" and demonstrated that McCain "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does."
To read the Journal's details about the depths of McCain's shallowness on the subject of Cox's chairmanship, see "McCain's Scapegoat" (Sept. 19). Then consider McCain's characteristic accusation that Cox "has betrayed the public's trust."
Perhaps an old antagonism is involved in McCain's fact-free slander. His most conspicuous economic adviser is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who previously headed the Congressional Budget Office. There he was an impediment to conservatives, including then-Rep. Cox, who, as chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, persistently tried and generally failed to enlist CBO support for "dynamic scoring" that would estimate the economic growth effects of proposed tax cuts.
In any case, McCain's smear -- that Cox "betrayed the public's trust" -- is a harbinger of a McCain presidency. For McCain, politics is always operatic, pitting people who agree with him against those who are "corrupt" or "betray the public's trust," two categories that seem to be exhaustive -- there are no other people. McCain's Manichaean worldview drove him to his signature legislative achievement, the McCain-Feingold law's restrictions on campaigning. Today, his campaign is creatively finding interstices in laws intended to restrict campaign giving and spending.
(For details, see The Post of Sept. 17; and the New York Times of Sept. 19.)
By a Gresham's Law of political discourse, McCain's Queen of Hearts intervention in the opaque financial crisis overshadowed a solid conservative complaint from the Republican Study Committee, chaired by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas. In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the RSC decried the improvised torrent of bailouts as a "dangerous and unmistakable precedent for the federal government both to be looked to and indeed relied upon to save private sector companies from the consequences of their poor economic decisions." This letter, listing just $650 billion of the perhaps more than $1 trillion in new federal exposures to risk, was sent while McCain's campaign, characteristically substituting vehemence for coherence, was airing an ad warning that Obama favors "massive government, billions in spending increases."
The political left always aims to expand the permeation of economic life by politics. Today, the efficient means to that end is government control of capital. So, is not McCain's party now conducting the most leftist administration in American history? The New Deal never acted so precipitously on such a scale. Treasury Secretary Paulson, asked about conservative complaints that his rescue program amounts to socialism, said, essentially: This is not socialism, this is necessary. That non sequitur might be politically necessary, but remember that government control of capital is government control of capitalism. Does McCain have qualms about this, or only quarrels?
On "60 Minutes" Sunday evening, McCain, saying "this may sound a little unusual," said that he would like to replace Cox with Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic attorney general of New York who is the son of former governor Mario Cuomo. McCain explained that Cuomo has "respect" and "prestige" and could "lend some bipartisanship." Conservatives have been warned.
Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.
It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?
georgewill@washpost.com
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