The Brooks Abides

"As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." — Proverbs 26:11

Once upon a time, if you were unbearably naive, you might have convinced yourself that, at long last, Mr. David Brooks of The New York Times may have actually learned his lesson.  That just maybe, possibly, the sight of every one of his sacred Conservative cows being herded into the Republican slaughterhouse, carved into Trump steaks by Donald Trump and Mr. Brooks' GOP, and then served up to cheered mobs at  MAGA Nuremburg rally barbeques would have shocked him into recognizing that maybe, possibly, sometimes Both Sides Don't and, holy shit, the Republican party has been full of Republicans all along!

After all, as your humble scrivener wrote back in 2016, after shacking up with a bottle of tequila the size of the Stanley Cup for a few days, Mr. David Brooks was making serious moves to save his job.

First he abjectly apologized to the only audience that really matters to him -- his plutocrat sponsors to whom he had spent his entire career selling piles of Whig Fan Fiction as serious reportage on the state of the nation:

And now, that Trump has done all the things David Brooks swore he could never do at the head of an army of fire-eyed Republican meatheads that David Brooks swore could not exist, Mr. Brooks has written a column so redolent with the stink of begging and fear and schadenfreude that it almost defies analysis. Suffice it to say, Mr. Brooks really, really, really wants someone to come along and save him from the beast he has been feeding for 20 years.

And, second, he swore that that he was gonna by God get the fuck out of the Acela Corridor Quiet Car and go forth into the wilds of the America heartland, to lend an ear to the sad stories of Real American's (from the NYT, March, 2016):

Moreover, many in the media, especially me, did not understand how they would express their alienation. We expected Trump to fizzle because we were not socially intermingled with his supporters and did not listen carefully enough. For me, it’s a lesson that I have to change the way I do my job if I’m going to report accurately on this country.

He even went across the street to rend his garments on The Now Defunct Charlie Rose Show.

But I also noted way back then that since Mr. David Brooks, is in, fact made entirely of Conservative shape-memory polymer from 1988, no matter how much stress and ideological deformation he is temporarily subjected to, he will always, always, always find a way back to regurgitating one of his two basic columns.

Which brings us to Mr. Brooks' contractually obligated PBS News Hour appearance yesterday, at which he showed one and all, once again, that he hasn't learned a damn thing, except that David Brooks is and always shall be completely insulated from the consequences of anything he ever writes or says.

First, wealthy plutocrats needn't worry because David Brooks will always stand by his benefactors.

Brooks:  Yes, first, I should say I have been friends with Harlan Crow for about 20 years. I find him a wonderful man. He's hosted me at his home in Dallas and in New York. So, reader — viewers should know that that's my connection to Harlan.

And so that's disclosure. And that's what I wish Clarence Thomas had done in this case.

I think viewers are smart enough to know. I'm probably biased in Harlan. I really like Harlan. I think he's a wonderful guy. 

Second, you can't really trust Congress to do anything because "polarization" which has become a magic Beltway Conjure Word like unto "tribal".

Brooks: As for going forward, I confess I'm a little concerned about Congress doing it, A, because they're pretty polarized. B, I'm not crazy about their own ethical standards. I mean, they go dialing for dollars, and they do a lot of nasty fund-raising. It's more polarized.

Third, I don't really know anything about the court, but they all seem pretty awesome to me!

Brooks:  I do think it's — in my opinion, having watched the court, not as a professor — I don't really — professional — I don't really cover the court too much. But, in my view, they don't do quid pro quo. In my view, most of the — I haven't met Clarence Thomas and many of the justices, but I have met a bunch. I find them remarkable people, both the ones appointed by Democrats and Republicans.

Also everyone (but me) is too ideological!

Brooks:  And so I think they have gotten too ideological. But I think the problem here is too ideological, not too corrupt.

And finally, the public is full of hooey.  The courts are doing a fine job.  After all, they haven't taken away any of my right, and I'm still making big cake appearing on shows like this, so where's the beef?

Brooks:  ...frankly, I think the public's distrust of the institution is unmerited. We should be suspicious of all concentrated power. But I think the courts in general, up and down the system, function reasonably well.

So, moving on, what about this deficit thingy?

Brooks: And so the Republicans are wrong in that we — as we said, we should have a budget negotiation over a budget through the budget process, not through the nuclear option. But, in my view, the Republicans are right that we have put on a big spending binge over the last five years, probably rightly, because of COVID and other things...And so the Republicans are not entirely wrong on the merits of the case.

To his credit, Jonathan Capehart very daintily raises the point that...

Capehart: ...Republicans didn't have a problem raising the debt ceiling when Donald Trump was president, and they also didn't have a problem running up trillions of dollars in debt when Donald Trump was president. So their sudden fiscal probity, I find a little off-putting.

Apparently "a little off-putting" is as potty-mouthed as one is allowed to get on the PBS News Hour which is one of several dozen reason you will never see me facing off with David Brooks on the PBS News Hour

And finally and inevitably, rather than risk making David Brooks -- who is sitting right there -- mildly uncomfortable by asking him to respond,  the moderator, Geoff Bennett, just Chuck Todd's it and moves everyone right along to the next subject.  So the literally dozens of moderate, Centrist shut-ins out there that live for this shit can now sleep soundly in the knowledge that, in this crazy, mixed up world, David Brooks remains eternal and unchanging. 

The Brooks abides.

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