David Brooks counsels Democrats to be nice.

[BurtWorm]

In other words to surrender.



http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/opinion/15BROO.html

Swords Into Plowshares
By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 15, 2003

I've been waiting for one of the trailing Democratic presidential candidates to give the following speech. Since none have, I'm offering it to them, free of charge:

...


I am losing. Howard Dean is crushing me. He has money. He has a movement. And he's had one other big advantage: no opposition.

From the moment his campaign took off, the rest of us contenders tried to mimic his success. We ratcheted up our attacks on the Bush administration. We became more combative. We attacked the war in Iraq. In short, we've tried to be better Howard Deans than Howard Dean. The results have been pathetic.

...





Howard Dean is liberal aggression, and none of us have ever taken that on until today. But now I am relaunching my campaign around one simple slogan: Stop the War.

I don't mean the war in Iraq. I mean the war at home. I mean the partisan war between Republicans and Democrats that rages every day in Washington and produces behavior that would be unacceptable in any other arena of life. I mean the war that poisons our airwaves, clogs up our best-seller lists and stagnates our politics.

[kentuck]

1. Go away, Brooks !

Why don't you tell that crap to your Republican brethren??

[agingdem]

24. Bite me, you neo-con Nazi!

I'm too old to make nice!

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. Gives new meaning to the term 'meaningless drivel'

The best way to fight for what we believe in is to not fight for it? Brooks says not to fight, but offers no alternative.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[Feanorcurufinwe]

14. You didn't mean to respond to my comment right?

You comment is directed at Brooks, not me, right?

[salinen]

17. comment

yes o yes it was directed at brooks. that's why i started with "brooky". i'm sorry. i'll be clearer in the future.

[RC]

3. Stop this war and the others will stop also

"I don't mean the war in Iraq. I mean the war at home. I mean the partisan war between Republicans and Democrats that rages every day in Washington and produces behavior that would be unacceptable in any other arena of life. I mean the war that poisons our airwaves, clogs up our best-seller lists and stagnates our politics."

[wryter2000]

19. Clogs the best sellers lists?

WTF? They own the best sellers list now? Bastards. Guess I'll have to keep buying those books because they're damned good! Better than any of their treasonous tripe.

[Uzybone]

5. Id like to see some DUers defend this one

some were trying to defend Kristoff when he wrote essentially the same thing. The message of the press nowadays is clear....Democrats are too nasty and hateful to be trusted as your leaders. They expound it at every turn now.

[HFishbine]

6. A Proposition for Mr. Brooks

Lay down your arms, hand over your commander, call off your soldiers and publicly acknowledge the crimes of your legions, then we'll discuss a truce.

[unfrigginreal]

7. Brooks needs to get with the program...

as a right winger, he's supposed to be propping Dean up, not tearing him down. Just ask almost any non Dean supporter.

As for the overall message to Democrats, eat shit and die Brooks, the day that you publicly call for Delay's resignation is the day that I might start to take you seriously on this.

[kentuck]

8. Perhaps he will go on the Rush Limbaugh show and present this...

piece of advice? Then Rush and all his dittoheads can agree that the Democrats should stop all their name-calling and poisoning our airwaves and Democrats should be nice. The irony and hypocrisy would be lost on all of them, I am sure.

[Don_G]

9. I'll Be Just As Nice As A RW Fundie Is

Meaning "Not Very."

[mhr]

10. How Quickly The Rethugs Forget That They Started The War

with the incessant attacks on Clinton.

They are the ones that decided to play dirty.

They are the ones that drug our politics into the sewer.

They are the ones that made morality an issue of everything.

They are the ones that now complain as scrutiny focuses on them.

Seems our attacks are working and hence we should never surrender.

[tom_paine]

23. They are programmed to be incapable of acknowledging such facts

that are outside of the Pravda their Bushevik Masters feed them.

Trying to point out the hypocirsy of a statement to them...well... you ight as well go to your local Aryan Nations and try to point out the hypocrisy in THEIR views.

Can't do it. Not possible. Goebbels v2.0 (the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: Ministry of Truth Division) programs them in this way the same way the original Goebbels v1.0 programmed their automatons...and for the same reason.

"What, you're gonna make me feel bad? You gonna make me think what I done? His whole family was RATS, he would've grown up to be a RAT."
--Tommy D (Joe Pesci), "Good Fellas", after shooting Spyder in teh foot for no reason

(no the Mafia weren't Nazis, but the thought pattern is the same)

[aquart]

11. Tell him to stuff it up his orifice.

The evil you teach us, we will imitate, and it shall go hard, but we will better the instruction.

Smokers always used to say, "If you'd asked me nicely..." as if they had the right to confer breathable air upon the worthy. Where are they now?

It's cellphone users who are saying, "If you'd asked me nicely..." now.

NO ONE reasons with the reasonable because they can be talked out of anything. Negotiations only begin when one party takes an unreasonable position. For too long, that has been the Republican Party.

I am sick of placating. It is time WE became unreasonable.

No more Mr. Nice Democrat.

[Rose Siding]

12. This would work

if the Repulicans decide not to run a candidate in '04

[kentuck]

13. Just as the Repub Neanderthals thought in the debate the other night..

They thought the Democrats would never play the game as aggressively as they...as if they are the only ones with the right to badmouth and poison the airwaves. They started this crap and we will finish it.

[Cocoa]

15. whatever Brooks says

it's part of a coordinated whore strategy. It's no secret that they've decided on "why do they hate Bush so much."

[SoCalDem]

16. I just hate their patronizing "nice doggy" approach to dems..

but, in retrospect, it has been the norm for so many years, why would they not expect it to keep working..

They know that if the act like recalcitrant toddlers, our guys will eventually give in and play nice.

I had hoped that we would stop being lap dogs, but the ones who pretend to represent us on the "screaming head" shows tend to be of the accomodating, play-nice variety..

Here's hoping that it changes....soon

[kentuck]

20. Is that Brit Hume in your animated gif ?

funny!

[wryter2000]

18. Now, now...

I'm sure he just had our best interests at heart. </sarcasm>

[chaumont58]

21. First Kristof, now Brooks

I think something is in the water at the New York Times.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

22. The War is not going to stop

We have been taking too many casualities for too long. We are now starting to fight back and we are not going to stop at the first taste of blood. We are going to tear the opposition apart until they cower meekly at our feet. We are the vicitms of aggression. We are the underdogs. We have learned cruelty from our opporessors. They have taught the lesson well. Now it's payback time.