Beloved Sulzberger Family Pet Shits The Rug. Again.

Based on that video you may be surprised to learn that, in school, David Brooks was not the kid who got his ass kicked and lunch money stolen by the school bully.

No, David Brooks was the bully's mouthpiece --

-- who patiently explained to the bully's victims that it really was in everyone's best interest to just give up the money and avoid a lot of trouble on Both Sides.

By now Brooks has been predictable and righteously been dragged further than transatlantic cable and raked harder than a thousand Zen rock gardens during Zen Rock Garden Grand Prix week.  In addition to the veteran members of the Brooks Night's Watch, doing yeoman's work was Max Kennerly who laid his hands on this tasty bit of journalistic offal from Mr. Brooks in 1998 when he was a "senior editor at the Weekly Standard" and for some reason being published in the Washington Post.  Brooks makes a half-hearted stab at being on all sides of the issue but clearly believes that Republicans using their newly-won majority in the House of Representatives to wham away at Bill Clinton would be glorious --

Gingrich Targets Democrats' Teflon Halo
By David Brooks
Sunday, May 17, 1998

When my wife was a little girl in the mid-1960s and somebody asked her what her family's religion was, she said "Democrat." Her answer reflected the way in which, ever since Franklin Roosevelt and especially during the civil rights movement, the Democratic Party somehow transcended mere politics and became something of a moral cause. Even today, it is still widely regarded as the more altruistic of the parties.

But now Bill Clinton sits atop the most scandal-plagued Democratic administration of the century, and the Republicans have a once-in-a-generation chance to strip away the Democrats' remaining moral prestige. They won't bring down Clinton, and they may not even add to their 11-seat House majority. But if they can pound the words "Democrat" and "corruption" together in the public mind, they will have negated the moral inheritance that the Democrats have lived off since the days of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Republicans do not need to persuade voters that they themselves are beacons of ethical grandeur. All they need do is show that the Democrats are at least as venal as they are. From the Republicans' point of view, they'd be crazy to pass up this chance.

Newt Gingrich seems to understand the potential of the moment...

and well worth the risk:

If the Republicans can hang the taint of scandal around the Democrats' necks -- the way Tony Blair's Labor Party linked the Tories to corruption in Britain's last election -- they will improve their prospects in every fight for the next several decades. 

I could have titled this post "David Brooks Must Do Better" or "The New York Times Must Do Better" but having been on the David Brooks beat for going on 15 years now, I can state as a categorical fact that David Brooks is doing great.

That his employers -- the House of Sulzberger -- believes that he is performing his job perfectly.

David Brooks is their beloved household pet.  And where you and I see a decades long Both Siderist shit-stain across the pages of America's newspaper of record, the Sulzberger family clearly sees something else entirely. Something so valuable that, through thick and thin, they are willing to invest it with all the prestige that comes with The New York Times' brand.

And what is that special something for which the House of Sulzberger is willing paying top-dollar and endure the mockery of pretty much every sentient creature on social media pretty much every week?

It is the beautiful, bewitching fairy tales that David Brooks spins for them.  The steady stream of comforting, honeyed lies he pours into their ear year after year after year.   I am, of course, referring to Mr. Brooks' Great Project:

...to completely rewrite the history of American Conservatism: to flense it of all of the Conservative social, political  economic and foreign policy debacles that make Mr. Brooks wince and repackage the whole era as a fairy tale of noble Whigs being led through treacherous hippie country by the humble David Brooks.

The problem, of course, is that Mr. Brooks' flim-flam is terribly fragile.  Gossamer-thin.  The slightest breeze of Reality would blow it to flinders.

Which is why the Beltway media -- led by the House of Sulzberger -- has spared no expense to build a mighty wall around it and roof it over with the finest moonshine and bunkum.