If You've Lost David Brooks ...

This is all great. But if Brooks is so smart, where the hell was he during the campaign when the rubes knew what to expect?

It was the liberal bloggers only conference call and other reports of Obama's partisanship - and that began on Day 1 with "I won," that I started to think about the echo chamber problem we are seeing. Also, Obama is not someone who thinks he can be wrong. And now David Brooks weighs in and fleshes it out - too late. But at least it's finally news.

It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.

Comments

[Neo]

Meanwhile, a large group of insular "conservatives" from big cities and the coasts are trying to dictate the future of the Republican Party.

[Ran]

It’s not that interesting to watch the RINO Squishocracy lose touch with American Conservatives. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The Republican Party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with conservatives or libertarians. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.

Oddly enough.

[smitty]

Until I see Brooks coming out in favor of something like http://federalismamendment.com
I'll think of him as other than a typical Progressive squish.

[WestWright]

Wow, I guess Brooks has given up on the BO BJ that was promised.

[Peg C.]

Rush was on this today. Brooks is equating conservative overreaching with liberal overreaching. Apples and oranges, and libs have all the MSM on their side, conservatives have only talk radio and blogs. Brooks also writes about the courage of the "moderate" Blue Dog Dems. Moderates by definition have no courage because they have no convictions. No one would know any truths about Obamacare without Rush, Mark, and other talk hosts and the righty blogosphere exposing what's really in it. The Blue Dogs wouldn't give a fig about this bill were their constituents not all over them about the TRUTHS in the bill.

[BD57]

IMO, Peg C. has the Blue Dogs read right - they aren't profiling courage.

"Fear" is the driving force here:

On the one hand, Nancy can make their life as a congressman miserable;

On the other, the folks back home can make them a 'former congressman" as of January 2011;

And they're beginning to believe the former can't protect them from the latter.

[Anon]

Moderates are the only saving grace of politics. Without moderates the country would careen wildly from left to right. Moderates and centrist policy making is what we should all be striving for.

I disagree about the Blue Dogs, the liberal Kos Kids HATE them with a passion, this tells me they are doing something right.

I read the Blue Dogs list of what they want to see in a health care bill and it sounds totally sane and reasonable.

Brooks was right, the GOP lulled itself into believing that there was a huge conservative majority on every position out there, and they were dead wrong.

The Terry Schiavo debacle was the beginning of the end for them.

[Ran]

"Moderates are the only saving grace of politics. Without moderates the country would careen wildly from left to right. Moderates and centrist policy making is what we should all be striving for."

Sorry, that is just pathetic bullcr^p. I'd sign on as 'anon', too, if I had posted it.

Ordered Liberty - our Constitutional Republic - is the "moderate" position lying centrally between libertine Anarchy on the far Right and Authoritarian Tyranny on the far Left. We've been fed this Leftist bullsh^t for a century that libertarian-conservative Liberty is "the Far Right" and that a "balanced, moderate" position that accommodates "social justice" is preferable.

The zeitgeist is changing: Liberty is re-awakening, and the goal-posts are being put back. "Moderates" - a "saving grace". "Centrist policy." F^ck. Save it for the high-school debate team.

[Anon]

I didn't say anything about social justice, but I will tell you this, that the George W. Bush/Tom DeLay Republican Party of reactionary conservativism is the wrong way to go if you want to recapture power.

Maybe you don't understand how the government works, that policies are achieved through consensus, which usually means that the far left and far right posistions are abandoned in favor of a compromise.

Or, if you have a fillibuster proof majority then you can steamroll over the entire country and do whatever you want....but it isn't really advisable for the long term.

Liberty is re-awakening, LOL.

[Respawn]

Anon,

Where I, and I believe most, "libertarian conservatives" would part company with you is your obvious underlying assumption that, at the end of the day, it is a matter of counting noses. Sorry, Charlie, but we are NOT a democracy. We are a Constitutional republic, with a democratically-ELECTED representative government that was SUPPOSED to be a government of limited, enumerated powers.

Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck if every nitwith liberal, moderate, socialist, statist and plain-old outright thief in the U.S. thinks it is "right" or "fair" or "appropriate" or even (and I HATE this one) "necessary" for ME to pay for THEIR health care . . . . IT AIN'T THE GUMMINT'S FUCKING JOB, SUNSHINE. Not the federal government's, not even the states. The gummint should get the fuck OUT of the health care business, and quit fucking things up.

But thanks for all that Kumbaya horseshit about how wonderful "moderates" are - it was comedy gold.

[Anon]

Again, what does the government not taking over health care have to do with moderates?

Oy, I see so far that no one has learned any lessons from the debacle of having the entire government handed to the left wing, especially since the ONLY THING PREVENTING A TOTAL FULL SCALE GOVERNMENT TAKE OVER OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY...would be...the blue dog 'moderate' Democrats.

But, whatever, I forgot that logic has never been a strong point for the GOP's social conservative wing.

[Ran]

"I will tell you this, that the George W. Bush/Tom DeLay Republican Party of reactionary conservativism is the wrong way to go if you want to recapture power."

Damned right... almost. Firstly, GWB was a Progressive, not a Conservative, and to go the Progressive way again is to suck big. Note: That is EXACTLY what Obama/Pelosi/Reid are doing. That is exactly WHY the libertarian-conservative base trashed McCain. Bush wasn't much of a Conservative, neither is McCain, and there are NO principled Conservatives remaining in the RNC directorate.

...and the term is 'Conservatism'. Bloody public schools.

[Mike]

@respawn - I thought the government's job is anything we decide it should be (via the officials we elect and the context of the current and future body of law).

I'd add this -- if the government votes to better fund our interstate highways, I might support that, even if I don't drive, because it's good for the country. We're a stronger country for it, even if it doesn't impact me directly.

If the government votes to increase involvement in health care, even if I currently have been able to secure health insurance, I might support it, because it's good for the country. We're a stronger country for it, even if it doesn't impact me directly.

I hope we can pass something that really does bring down these over-inflated health care costs. I'm also proud to live in a country where you can think that something "ain't the gummint's [expletive] job" and others, who have alternate ideas about how to work for a stronger country, can disagree with you.

[Ran]

"If the government votes to increase involvement in health care, even if I currently have been able to secure health insurance, I might support it, because it's good for the country. We're a stronger country for it, even if it doesn't impact me directly."

Sounds... so nice. NO, "we" won't be a stronger nation for it, and NO, it will not be "good for the country." IF more voters had a frickin' idea how to balance their check-book they'd understand.

"I thought the government's job is anything we decide it should be (via the officials we elect and the context of the current and future body of law)."

Bullcr^p. The Gov't job is 1) to secure the Nation from enemies foreign and domestic and to 2) guard the Constitution.

Bloody public schools.

[Fletch]

WestWright-

"Wow, I guess Brooks has given up on the BO BJ that was promised."

I wouldn't put my dick in Brooks' mouth either...

[Slide]

"I wouldn't put my dick in Brooks' mouth either..."

ever wonder why wingnuts seem obsessed with gay sex? Just wondering.

[avenir labs]

If finally we lost now we feel better.