Posted on 10/08/2008 3:16:45 PM PDT by publius1
David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."
In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:
[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.
Brooks praised Palin's natural political talent, but said she is "absolutely not" ready to be president or vice president. He explained, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."
The New York Times columnist also said that the "great virtue" of Palin's counterpart, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is that he is anything but a "yes man."
"[Biden] can't not say what he thinks," Brooks remarked. "There's no internal monitor, and for Barack Obama, that's tremendously important to have a vice president who will be that way. Our current president doesn't have anybody like that."
Brooks also spent time praising Obama's intellect and skills in social perception, telling two stories of his interactions with Obama that left him "dazzled":
Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.
And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.
Brooks predicted an Obama victory by nine points, and said that although he found Obama to be "a very mediocre senator," he was is surrounded by what Brooks called "by far the most impressive people in the Democratic party."
"He's phenomenally good at surrounding himself with a team," Brooks said. "I disagree with them on most issues, but I am given a lot of comfort by the fact that the people he's chosen are exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose if we were in his shoes. So again, I have doubts about him just because he was such a mediocre senator, but his capacity to pick staff is impressive."
At this point in time, I would rather trust Palin than any of the corrupt politicians in DC.
David Brooks, you are not ready to be a journalist or pundit. I say that because you write as a person that embodies all that the masses hate.
If you and your buds had done so well, we would not have the problems we are dealing with right now.
David, dunce hat, corner.
You see, pseudo-intellectuals are always impressed by other psuedo-intellectuals, because they intuitively recognize their own lack of true intellectual content and are impressed by any display of superficial intellectual ability.
All real intellectuals are intuitively anti-intellectual. The first of them all was Socrates, who famously said “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”
If you spend your time east of the Hudson or the Potomac, you can be an elitist,too!
Palin is a fatal blow to RINOs. She and Bobby Jindal are the current and future stars of conservatives. I’m excited about our future.
Interesting choice of keywords.
Gov Palin IS flyover country and that is right in Mel Brook’s face...err..Dave Brooks,and he doesn’t like being reminded of the people who do the work in the US.
He’d much rather chat with Tom Friedman about how correct Tom is over actually stepping up to embrace that which is great about America, no, can’t do that.
Maybe Friedman will stop giving Mel Bro..err..Dave Brooks wedgies now that he has bowed at the alter of Obamao and thrown Real America overboard...
As Plato knew, politicians aren’t thinkers. We were lucky, in that Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln were probably geniuses. That’s more than most nations could ever hope for. But Washington? TR? FDR? Kennedy? Reagan? Their policies fell back on, at most, one or two firmly held beliefs. They were men of action.
All I care about Palin is that she’s got charisma and she’s a true blue conservative. Without honestly conservative leaders, the Republican party has no chance but to be the runner-up party.
He’s so full of it I’m guessing his eyes are Brown.
Impossible. Our guys don't get to the Slimes. No conservative would regard these two candidates as "very good." Obama is the cancer. Biden is the cancer which continues to grow in a dead person for a little while after they are buried. McCain is like when the body's immune system crosses over to see if it can help the diseases out in any way.
Palin is just one of us Americans who NY'ers and S.F'ers like to make fun of. Just the people who built the damn place in the first place, bless our hearts, as Sarah says.
How can this lady be a cancer? Do you realize what you're saying? This woman, wife, mother and fighter is the epitome of conservatism and individualism and BELIEF! You might as well be calling my mother, wife and daughter (grand daughters) a cancer. You are a pitiful fool and you are sorely mistaken that you have an influence in ANYTHING conservative, or Republican, for that matter. ASSHOLE!
Gives us something to laugh at in these depressing times.
David Brooks -— eewwwwwwwwwwww!!!
When I saw that name I nearly retched! I absolutely detest that guy - looking at him, listening to him — and then there’s his usual message! Such a disgusting jacka**!!!
Just had to vent there — feel better now.
I read once that one is not a real man unless he owns a pickup truck, a chain saw, and a handgun. A coon or bird dog comes in a close fourth.
Brooks?
Nah.
I think Brooks needs to have brain checked for cancer! What a complete idiot!
You’re damn right. Romney and his supporters are scum.
I love everything you wrote....very descriptive !!!!!!!
Gov Palin IS flyover country and that is right in Mel Brook’s face...err..Dave Brooks,and he doesn’t like being reminded of the people who do the work in the US.
He’d much rather chat with Tom Friedman about how correct Tom is over actually stepping up to embrace that which is great about America, no, can’t do that.
Maybe Friedman will stop giving Mel Bro..err..Dave Brooks wedgies now that he has bowed at the alter of Obamao and thrown Real America overboard...
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