There are Lots of Fine Arguments

One could mount against David Brooks' terrible column today on Green jobs.

One could point out that the proposition that "government" sucks at creating/promoting/protecting jobs in strategically vital economic sectors is absurd to the point of being classified as Conservative-masturbatory-induced-blindness when one considers that "government" creating/promoting/protecting jobs in strategically vital economic sectors is the very definition of the plan China has been successfully and aggressively executing for the last 30 years.

One could link to this chart that shows how Chinese investment has dwarfed American investment.

One could point out the hilarious hypocrisy of Mr. Brooks' setting a $500 million threshold for abandoning a government initiative as fruitless when you consider that $500M would pay for about 2.5 days worth of pissing American blood and treasure into the sands of sunny Iraq -- a war that Mr. Brooks dearly loved and supported vigorously with his mouth right up until the direction of the prevailing winds changed.

(Back when the hot Conservative talking point was killing random rag-heads for Freedom (and mocking Liberal opponents as bad Americans), Mr. Brooks was very much a "pay any price/ bear any burden" kind of guy. Now that we're talking about spending a fraction of what Mr. Brooks' Operation Endless Clusterfuck has cost us to secure the lives and futures of blue collar Joes and Janes, suddenly Our Mr. Brooks -- along with virtually the entire Conservative movement -- is a whole lot less gung ho about opening up the change purse.)

One could point out that Mr. Brooks' rhetoric parallels almost exactly that of anti-space exploration Luddites who endlessly bitched that the Final Frontier was a waste of tax dollars, that it was doomed to failure and would point to expensive rockets blowing up on the launch pad as proof that it was all just the costly folly of fools...and one could link to this site -- Spinoff -- which the details the hundreds and hundreds of products which NASA has brought to market thanks to the prudent investment of tax dollars in technology.

One could point out that there is nothing magical about Evil Gummint losing some dough on a company they thought had promise and important strategic value: that the win/loss record of private sector investment in start-ups is also very high, and that business fail for all kinds of reasons such as, say, getting buried by competitors who have access to unlimited pools of Chinese money.

One could point out the irony of a hack like Mr. Brooks arguing so vehemently for letting raw market forces decide every outcome and it just too bad if your opponent beats you using rigged Chinese dice because that's life in the NBA bitches...from the safety of his Wingnut Welfare sinecure at the New York Times where the harsh winds of meritocratic competition never so much as muss a single hair on Mr. Brooks' head.

One could point out all of this and so much more to underscore that America's Leading Conservative Public Intellectual once again does not know what he is talking about.

But why would one bother?