What happened, David Brooks? Let me tell you …

Know nothing elitist David Brooks laments today in the New York Times about what went wrong after Obama got elected. Brooks decries the dramatic shift to the right now the public can actually see what Hope and Change is all about. 

Brooks: ... The center has been losing political power pretty much my entire career. But I confess that about 16 months ago I had some hope of a revival. The culture war, which had bitterly divided the country for decades, was winding down. The war war — the fight over Iraq and national security — was also waning.

The country had just elected a man who vowed to move past the old polarities, who valued discussion and who clearly had some sympathy with both the Burkean and Hamiltonian impulses. He staffed his administration with brilliant pragmatists whose views overlapped with mine, who differed only in that they have more faith in technocratic planning.

Yet things have not worked out for those of us in the broad middle. Politics is more polarized than ever. The two parties have drifted further to the extremes. The center is drained and depressed.

What happened?

What happened? I’ll tell you what happened Mr. Brooks. Stupid people like you, who run around pretending they are so smart and pragmatic, drank gallons of Hope and Change Kool Aid. If you were half as smart as you pretend to be, you would have taken a look at Obama’s limited record and sketchy past, and concluded that electing him president would have been risky at best or dangerous at worst.

Now that Obama is dragging the nation kicking and screaming toward a European socialist model, your much admired middle is beating a hot retreat to the right. Their hope is to bring the nation back somewhere towards the center by 2012. My advice to you Mr. Brooks is that you stop writing these stupid columns and join them.

Join the middle in their retreat to the right; because that will be the only way you will ever see that dream of a small and energetic government.  Should that dream be realized, know this Mr. Brooks, such a government requires a very active and alert electorate; an electorate that can see politicians in the most stark and realistic terms before voting for them. People who pick their presidents because they have sharp creases in their pants are completely ill suited for the task.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times  

The Tea Party Movement: David Brooks has seen the future and it does not include him

Faux conservative New York Times scribbler David Brooks sees the decade dominated by The Tea Party movement.  Brooks in true snobby fashion describes the movement as a rebellion against “the educated class”:

The public is not only shifting from left to right. Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

What Brooks doesn’t realize or refuses to admit, s the complete failing of the so-called "educated class". Look at global warming. Climategate leaves serious questions about the integrity of both the climate scientists and their data, yet the “educated class” flocks to Copenhagen to waste billions without every pausing to say, "hey maybe we ought to take a second look at this".

The “educated class” of both sides of the aisle have been running Washington for decades and just look at what the result has been: astronomical deficits, reckless spending, ineffective security measures, and an energy policy that leaves us at the mercy of our enemies. How is the common man supposed to have any faith in a track record like that?

People are starting to realize that what is sorely missing in government by the "educated class" is a healthy dose of common sense.  Whether it is dealing with the economy, health care or terrorism, common senses is absent in all of Washington’s decisions. Instead, it is the talking points of special interests groups and politicians’ own self interests masquerading as enlighten thought that is driving Washington’s decisions. This is what the people are waking up to and starting to reject. 

Brooks is right, the Tea Party will be the future.  They will elect people who realize what the true driving force of Washington is and they will work against it. The Tea Party will usher in a new area of common sense and sham intellectuals like David Brooks need not apply.

Via: Memeorandum

Via: The New York Times

Quick Hits

Jenna Bush Hager sign on as Today show contributor

Via Politico:

In the tradition of Meghan McCain, Liz Cheney and other daughters of prominent Republicans who've waded into the media waters, former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager will try her luck in broadcast on NBC's "Today," AP reports.

The 27-year-old teacher at a Baltimore charter school, who has already penned two books, will serve as a once-a-month contributor on topics such as education, Jim Bell, the show's executive producer, told the wire.

Jenna, Jenna, Jenna, NBC? Even though she won’t be talking politics, she had better watch her back over there. NBC is rabidly pro-Obama.

Carrie Prejean to sue Miss California USA Officials

Via Big Hollywood:

RANCHO SANTA FE, CA - Carrie Prejean’s attorney, Charles S. LiMandri announced today that the former Miss California USA is filing a complaint in the Superior Court of California against Miss California USA officials Keith Lewis and Shanna Moakler, and publicist Roger Neal. The complaint cites damages to Miss Prejean including libel, public disclosure of private facts, religious discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Might as well, that was a hate/hate relationship if ever there was one.

Books and Obama sitting in a tree…

From The New Republic:

"I don't want to sound like I'm bragging," Brooks recently told me, "but usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a policy area better than me, they generally don't know political philosophy better than me. I got the sense he knew both better than me."
That first encounter is still vivid in Brooks's mind. "I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant," Brooks says, “and I'm thinking, a) he's going to be president and b) he'll be a very good president." In the fall of 2006, two days after Obama'sThe Audacity of Hope hit bookstores, Brooks published a glowing Times column. The headline was "Run, Barack, Run."

H/t The Other McCain

No surprise that David Brooks would admire perfectly creased pants. We all know that Mr. Brooks has a very hard time keeping the creases in his pants, since he allows all that inner thigh rubbing during dinner parties.

A queer thing happened to David Brooks at dinner

1. I thought gay men were known for having exceptionally good taste, evidently not!
2. I think Brooks protest too much. If the encounter was that icky, why let the dude's hand stay there all night? Is there no New York elitist way to say: "sorry, I don't roll like that"?