David Brooks' Simple Solution To All America's Problems -- UPDATE

...there is a way out: Make the executive branch more powerful.

No kidding.

That's it.

As a professional power-groveler, it should come as no surprise that David Brooks wants a king so bad he can taste it.

It is mildly surprising that he would actually say it in print.

But say it he does, in 800 insipid words on the horrors of our gridlocked government during which Mr. Brooks makes no mention whatsoever of "filibuster".  Or "obstruction".  Or "hostage".  Or "shutdown".  Or "debt ceiling".  Or "anonymous hold".  Or "cloture".

To read Mr. Brooks' column, you would never know there existed a party called "Republican" or movement called "Conservatism" or a propaganda empire dedicated to destroying the presidency of Barack Obama called "Fox News" or a racist bomb-throwing goof named "Rush Limbaugh" who runs the Pig People like a warlord.  There is, according to Mr. Brooks, only a geographical location called "Washington" and an institution called "Congress" which bear undifferentiated, collective responsibility for the toxic "reform stagnation" that is screwing everything up.

You will hear plenty about "rentier groups".  You will hear nothing about the infamous and by-now-exhaustively-documented meeting that took place the day Barack Obama was inaugurated in which the leaders of the GOP outlined their strategy of 100% intractable opposition to anything and everything President Obama would try to accomplish:

Robert Draper Book: GOP's Anti-Obama Campaign Started Night Of Inauguration

As President Barack Obama was celebrating his inauguration at various balls, top Republican lawmakers and strategists were conjuring up ways to submarine his presidency at a private dinner in Washington.

The event -- which provides a telling revelation for how quickly the post-election climate soured -- serves as the prologue of Robert Draper's much-discussed and heavily-reported new book, "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives."

According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). The non-lawmakers present included Newt Gingrich, several years removed from his presidential campaign, and Frank Luntz, the long-time Republican wordsmith. Notably absent were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- who, Draper writes, had an acrimonious relationship with Luntz.

For several hours in the Caucus Room (a high-end D.C. establishment), the book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama's legislative platform.

"If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," Draper quotes McCarthy as saying. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."

...

You will hear lots about "the judicial usurpation of power".  You will not hear a fucking a peep about the well-organized, well-funded takeover of the GOP by its rule-or-ruin Teabagger base.

You will not hear a word about the real causes of our real problem from Mr. Brooks because that is not what the Sulzberger family pays Mr. Brooks to say.  Instead, all you will hear from the same grotty little fascist who spent the better part of eight years championing the idea that for the good of the nation George W. Bush should seize all the executive power he could grab and the devil take the hindmost...and spent the five years since the end of the Age of Dubya as the most diligent and adamant lying Both Siderist in American media...is that Murrica needs to curb-stomp the whole idea of representative government once and for all and get back to the good old days of wise kings, benevolent empires and the White Man's Burden.

No kidding.

As I have pointed our frequently over the past eight years, Mr. Brooks long ago gave up any pretext of being a journalist in favor of his long-range project to radically excise from the history of the Modern Conservative movement any references to any embarrassing evidence that the Modern Conservative movement has been a disaster and that David Brooks has been one of its most diligent stooges.

And today he added another full chapter to his Wingnut Future History.  A chapter that teaches:

It’s a good idea to be tolerant of executive branch power grabs and to give agencies flexibility... 

A chapter that preaches:

We don’t need bigger government. We need more unified authority...

A chapter in which the David Brooks of 2013 finally buries the last, few fluorescent ties and knuckle-bones of the Bush-loving, "Hey, lookit them stoopid Libruls!", David Brooks of 2001 (a literary style which got him his gig-for-life at the New York Times) in an unmarked, unhallowed grave --

Bush, as Advertised

FEB 5, 2001

What on earth has gotten into the liberals and the media? Perhaps affected by some sort of post-Palm Beach stress disorder, reporters and activists on the left have depicted George W. Bush as the leader of some sort of arch-conservative jihad. They've portrayed his tax plan as dangerously radical, some of his nominees as Confederacy-loving loons, and his voucher plan as a menace to the future of public education. To put it bluntly, this is all deranged. You get the impression that the left has actually started believing its own direct-mail fund-raising letters...

-- alongside  with the remains of the "You can't trust concentrated power!" David Brooks of February, 2013

"It's just we should never trust concentrated power. That is not what the country is based on. It's based on checks and balances."

-- and uses that very same gig-for-life at the New York Times to fully reanimate the decaying corpse of David Brooks circa 1997:

"The national mission can be carried out only by individuals and families -- not by collectives, as in socialism and communism. Instead, individual ambition and willpower are channeled into the cause of national greatness. And by making the nation great, individuals are able to join their narrow concerns to a larger national project."

A chapter entitled:




UPDATE:

And with utter, depressing predictability, the same clowns who walked around sporting an adamantium hard-on for eight years over the antics of Dick "Unitary Executive" Cheney

are now wetting the bed in horror over Mr. Brooks' suggestion that the Executive branch should grab more unitary power.

This is surely parody even w/ Brooks RT @HouseCracka: David Brooks: What America needs now is a stronger presidency with “unified authority”
— David Limbaugh (@DavidLimbaugh) December 13, 2013

From David Brooks: The executive branch has screwed up Obamacare rollout so badly, it's time to give it more power. http://t.co/MnfAaDu5Z7
— Byron York (@ByronYork) December 13, 2013

Why leftists like "conservative" David Brooks are so dangerous: USA needs stronger presidency w/ “unified authority” http://t.co/Iuq5L8BWQl
— Brad Thor (@BradThor) December 13, 2013