Change I (David Brooks) Can Believe In

[kentuck]

What is the first thing you notice about this article by David Brooks in the NY Times? His dreams are all about Obama and liberals "compromising" with conservatives - there is nothing about the conservatives compromising with Barack Obama and those that voted him in, knowing his agenda? All the dreams about ""bi-partisanship" is a one-way street for David Brooks.
=============================

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/opinion/07brooks.html

<snip>
I have dreams. I may seem like a boring pundit whose most exotic fantasies involve G.A.O. reports, but deep down, I have dreams. And right now I’m dreaming of the successful presidency this country needs. I’m dreaming of an administration led by Barack Obama, but which stretches beyond the normal Democratic base. It makes time for moderate voters, suburban voters, rural voters and even people who voted for the other guy.

The administration of my dreams understands where the country is today. Its members know that, as Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center put it on “The NewsHour,” “This was an election where the middle asserted itself.” There was “no sign” of a “movement to the left.”

<snip>
The Obama administration of my dreams will insist that Congressional Democrats reinstate bipartisan conference committees. They’ll invite G.O.P. leaders to the White House for real meetings and then re-invite them, even if they give hostile press conferences on the White House driveway.

They’ll do things conservatives disagree with, but they’ll also show that they’re not toadies of the liberal interest groups. They’ll insist on merit pay and preserving No Child Left Behind’s accountability standards, no matter what the teachers’ unions say. They’ll postpone contentious fights on things like card check legislation.

Most of all, they’ll take significant action on the problems facing the country without causing a mass freak-out among voters to the right of Nancy Pelosi.

....more

[malaise]

1. Tell Brooks he lost

His model is dead and buried.

[ixion]

2. quite the selective memory on mr brooks

he seems to forget the complete lack of so-called "bi-partisanship" from his own worthless party.

[apnu]

3. No sign of a move to the left? Is he insane?

How about all the anti-choice bans being shot down all over the place, even in the deepest of red areas (SD).

If the national rejection of anti-choice bans isn't a shift to the left to Brooks then he's hasn't been paying attention.

[stray cat]

4. I largely agree with his dream - leaders working for Americans versus a party

[skypilot]

5. I tried...

...but I just couldn't read it. The guy is such a fucking worm. It's all I can do to watch him sitting next to Mark Shields on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. More and more he strikes me as someone whose family is being held hostage somewhere by right-wing thugs who threaten to mail body parts to him unless he says what they want him to say. I wish he would just vanish.

[MrCoffee]

6. Don't you wish Sheilds would just reach over and smack him in the back of the head?

"Just shut up, David, you sound like an idiot."

[skypilot]

7. I swear I've seen Mark Shields...

...do double-takes at some things Brooks has said. Sometimes Shields seems to get a little agitated and fidgety as Brooks has spoken. However, I've long since given up hoping for the smack in the back of the head or the punch in the face, although it is fun to imagine that Shields is kicking him under the table.

[Bake]

8. "Elections have consequences."

Isn't that what the Pukes told us for eight years?

Bake

[yellowcanine]

9. ” There was “no sign” of a “movement to the left.” Oh really, David?

How about all of those first time voters and young people endorsing the views of Obama and flipping the former red states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada to blue? How about all of the polls showing many more people identifying themselves as Democrats than as Republicans. How all of the people thinking we are on the wrong track? How about the intense dissatifaction with the current right of center administration and President Bush? Did all of the tax cuts for the wealthy, preemptive war, cut backs of basic civil rights, etc. really have nothing to do with how people voted? Hmm? The only way one can believe there is "no sign" of a movement to the left is to believe that all of these real events are just happenstance.