Putz

What's the deal with everyone calling NYT columnist David Brooks a "conservative?" I just read this article that shows Brooks to be a political sycophant of the highest order (as if we needed anymore proof), chock full of liberalism, and yet it begins and ends on the same note: David Brooks is a conservative, or a "center-right columnist." People have been saying it forever: he's a conservative.

For the past year people have been saying things like, "though a conservative, David Brooks agrees with Obama." For Brooks' part, he more than agrees with Obama, he thinks they're cut from the same cloth. Here's Brooks:

"And, then, the war in Iraq has caused me to rethink things in a much more modest [way], and that is Burkean, too.”

[Brooks] recognizes something similar in the current president. “Obama sees himself as a Burkean,” Brooks says. “He sees his view of the world as a view that understands complexity and the organic nature of change.”

Ah. So it's not so much conservative/liberal, as it is smart/doofus. Naturally Brooks is in the smart camp, the Burkean camp.

I'm from the Don Rickles camp: David Brooks is an arrogant snob who sold his soul to political masters a long time ago. He's a putz. Take this bit from Brooks: "My line is, the Clinton people would tell you you’re a complete and total asshole. The Obama people say, ‘We love you. You’re a great guy. It’s sad you’re a complete and total asshole.’ They’re always very mature about it.”

Wonderful. When's the last time you were pleased that people who loved you thought you were a pathetic jackass?

As a liberal or conservative, the guy's a joke.