But they’re cousins, identical cousins all the way.

Spot the rodent.

I pulled this up out of a reply to specific comments, because the question of why bother with Brooks at all, and who reads the NYT anymore anyway comes up here and elsewhere, and I think it deserves an answer.

It seem very clear to me that BoBo is many laughably obtuse things, but BoBo Don't Surf. He isn't simply misguided and there is little chance that he's ever going to see the light and change his mind: he reasons backwards from his ideology into his limp diatribes, instead of forward from the facts to a reasonable conclusion.

Instead (and in answer to those questions) I believe Brooks is a serious, committed Wingnut middleman -- sort of the Fundamentalist's pet PBS Mennonite -- which IMHO is much more dangerous than a fully outed DeLay.

Brooks' job is to sell the poison to the Center: to reassure the Moderates and “Reagan Democrats” and to coax the Undecideds into the Windowless Fundy Panel Truck by dandying their evil up in perfumed NYT-speak, and since the battle for the future of the country takes places in the middle, these wingnuts-in-sheeps-clothing are the ones that deserve extra-special beatings.

The good news is, BoBo obviously doesn't know he's an idjit. Instead, he thinks he's tricksey, which is why he keeps obligingly waddling into the thresher blades.