Does Reading David Brooks Kill Your Soul?

[frank frankly]

The answer is yes. You've been warned. I personally could not read the whole thing.

He is the worst writer I have ever read.

I hate this man.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/10/opinion/10BROO.html?pagewanted=print&position=

-----------------

April 10, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Take a Deep Breath
By DAVID BROOKS

Come on people, let's get a grip.

This week, Chicken Littles like Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd were ranting that Iraq is another Vietnam. Pundits and sages were spinning a whole series of mutually exclusive disaster scenarios: Civil war! A nationwide rebellion!

Maybe we should calm down a bit. I've spent the last few days talking with people who've spent much of their careers studying and working in this region. We're at a perilous moment in Iraqi history, but the situation is not collapsing. We're in the middle of a battle. It's a battle against people who vehemently oppose a democratic Iraq. The task is to crush those enemies without making life impossible for those who fundamentally want what we want.

The Shiite violence is being fomented by Moktada al-Sadr, a lowlife hoodlum from an august family. The ruthless and hyperpoliticized Sadr has spent the past year trying to marginalize established religious figures, like Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who come from a more quietist tradition and who believe in the separation of government and clergy. Sadr and his fellow putschists have been spectacularly unsuccessful in winning popular support. The vast majority of Iraqis do not want an Iranian-style dictatorship. Most see Sadr as a young, hotheaded murderer who terrorizes people wherever he goes.

He and his band have taken this opportunity to make a desperate bid for power, before democratic elections reveal the meagerness of their following.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

1. I try not to read articles that will lower my IQ.

[frank frankly]

2. but, but he quotes Holy Joe Lieberman!!!

<snip>

Most important, leadership in the U.S. is for once cool and resolved. This week I spoke with leading Democrats and Republicans and found a virtual consensus. We're going to keep the June 30 handover deadline. We're going to raise troop levels if necessary. We're going to wait for the holy period to end and crush Sadr. As Joe Lieberman put it, a military offensive will alienate Iraqis, but "the greater risk is will grow into something malevolent." As Charles Hill, the legendary foreign service officer who now teaches at Yale, observed, "I've been pleasantly surprised by the boldness and resolve."

[Veggie Meathead]

12. In the same oped Brooks continues that al Sadr and his

his followers are enemies of civilization.They are a bunch of terrorists etc., etc.It does not occur to this neocon shill that
they are fighting against an invader and have every right to use all means available to repel the invader.Brooks may also want to read Juan Cole's excellent post this morning that the uprising that alSadr's poor Shiites initiated in Baghdad is now joined by the Sunnis and Kurds forming a united Iraqi front.This is going to delegitimize the Quisling IGC. To call this a minor upheaval by a small band of thugs as Brooks and his neocon pal Joe Lieberman do is to completely misjudge the significance of the uprising.

FWIW, Dave Brooks/Joe Lieberman/William Kristol and other neocons,your fifteen minutes of PNAC fame is at an end.The American people and, more importantly, the Iraqi people have paid an enormous price in blood and money for your imperialist dreams. Go home, take a deep breath and fade away.

[frank frankly]

13. well said!

welcome to DU and great name!

:hi:

charley krauthammer is also a despicable monster.

[spanone]

3. Brooks seems to spend his career at NYTimes defending bush*

Spin is not news. Death is.

[frank frankly]

4. reading brooks is torture

another very clear sign of the death of the NYTimes.

brooks is a joke. a really really really bad joke.

[Jazzgirl]

5. I couldn't read it this morning either.

David Brooks makes me :puke: He is so full of himself its not even funny. I hate the way he frames his editorials.

[bpilgrim]

6. Enemies of Civilization

are the ones currently INDISCRIMINATELY KILLING and BOMBING cities, towns and villages, men, women and children... right?

so... is he talking about us? :shrug:

and let me get this straight... so if bush's illegal preventive war fails and creates and even bigger one 'the gates of hell will open up' :crazy:

is this fool on crack :shrug:

peace

[frank frankly]

7. i think he is on crack

or maybe they chug LSD at the Weekly Standard.

David Brooks is one of the worst people ever to pick up a pen.

Safire, of course, is just as bad.

[Zero Division]

8. Gotta love Josh Marshall's take on this one:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_04_04.php#002834

[frank frankly]

9. Brooks is also a very creepy looking guy

nasty creepy lying sack of shit who also DRESSES HORRIBLY.

[Stephanie]

21. David Brooks has Teeny Little Girly Hands

I am astounded that the NY Times, PBS and NPR all employ him as a RW pundit. Brooks is not a normal conservative. He is a neo-con who is the spokesmodel for the PNAC agenda. He is allowed to LIE blatantly in the NY Times with no correction. The whole thing disgusts me. I get the same visceral loathing for Brooks that I do for the chimp.

[Dark]

10. I can't link to it.

It just takes me to a screen that asks me to subscribe.

[frank frankly]

11. NYTimes is a free subscribe site

so is Washington Post, now.

:shrug:

[SOS]

14. Impeccable research

"I've spent the last few days talking with people who've spent much of their careers studying and working in this region."

Wow! He talked to someone who studied the region.
Can't argue with that.

[frank frankly]

15. LOL

i didn't think of that.

he called Willy Kristol and Rummy and...

:puke:

[Cocoa]

20. the "Chicken Little" part is pure Rummy

I can hear Al Franken's impersonation now...

The part about Iran comes from Richard Perle, the rest comes from the lesser neocons.

[Stephanie]

22. Let's see if we can name them: Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rummy

Ahmed Chalabi and the INC.

Brooks' boss, William Kristol.

Henry Kissinger.

Who else would Brooks have talked with?

[HootieMcBoob]

23. I'd bet those people he talked to

were the same people who got us into this mess in the first place. It's Brooks and his neo-con buddies that have royally fucked this country over but good.

[BurtWorm]

16. "...those (in Iraq) who fundamentally want what we want."

Where are those Iraqis? Probably in grad school in Cambridge, DC, or Berkeley, planning to stay right here and get it. :eyes:

[frank frankly]

17. david brooks, you bastard

:kick:

[against all enemies]

18. Can't read him

but do read the letters that tear him apart a few days later. The Times sunk pretty low on this one, he's not even a bright guy.

[frank frankly]

27. you can't go lower than brooks

he is garbage's garbage

[PfcHammer]

19. vanilla jayson blair

[Stephanie]

26. Absolutely. He just makes it all up - with impunity.

Why is he allowed to get away with it?

[Logansquare]

24. David "There's a cliche to explain everything" Brooks

I have a question about him--did he used to work in marketing or advertising? His writing about political demographics sounds like the sort of reductive consumer segmentation used to sell toothpaste and cars.
You know what I mean: "America is deeply divided between body-piercing, latte-drinking, Jetta-driving atheists, and evangelistic Christian, fast-food eating, pickup truck driving Nascar Dads and Moms who subscribe to USA Today."

His columns are so fucking insulting, especially considering their presence in the formerly gray great lady, NYT.

[kodi]

25. he is an awful excuse for a print journalist

he certainly was not chosen for his ability to pen concise and cogent essays of the day.

it's one thing to do propaganda well; it is to be at least admired for its craftsmanship, but when done poorly as brooks does, its embarrassing to watch.

akin to witnessing a man make a fool of himself in public and not even know it.

[frank frankly]

28. he is worthy of hate and ridicule

and unfortunately, he should inspire fear as well.