Today, David Brooks had a column on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times. It’s pretty much a standard Brooks piece, bemoaning the lack of civility in Washington today. It is wrong on its facts and wrong on its interpretations and laughably wrong on its understanding of politics.
- Ezra Klein takes it down analytically.
- Jonathan Chait takes it apart with the devastating mockery it so richly deserves.
The health care debate has revealed not only how dysfunctional our national politics is. It’s exposed how vapid and worthless the self-appointed pundits and intelligentsia have become.
(I also have to say how taken aback I am at how nakedly the professional punditry is willing to scoff at such a radical principle as “rule by simple majority”, which Brooks derides in no uncertain terms. Isn’t rule of the majority more or less what we mean by democracy?)