Posted on 12/26/2013 4:57:46 AM PST by lbryce
You'd think it's nearly April Fools' Day, not Christmas.
For four years running, I've closed the holiday season with a column saying “bah, humbug” to the year's worst op-eds. Christmas came early this year, thanks to perennial contender David Brooks. In Thursday's New York Times, Brooks offered a bold panacea for the problems of our time: We need to “Strengthen the Presidency.”
It might strike you as counterintuitive to imagine that a president with a drone fleet, a “kill list,” dragnet databases of Americans' personal information and increasingly arbitrary authority over health care's one-sixth of the U.S. economy has too little power—but that's how you know you're in the presence of an original thinker.
Luckily, there's “a way out”: “Make the executive branch more powerful.” What that would mean for entitlements and tax reform isn't at all clear, but Brooks follows that prescription with this spit-take-inducing sentence: “This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we've just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout.” We suffer from “reform stagnation,” Brooks laments. It's too hard to push through “immigration reform, tax reform, entitlement reform and gun legislation” via the archaic "Schoolhouse Rock!" method outlined in Article I of the Constitution.
“It's important to advocate greater executive branch power in a chastened mood,” you see. Brooks teaches a class on “humility” at Yale, so he's an expert on this stuff.
When you make arguments of this caliber, it’s clear you’ve got plenty to be humble about. Brooks’ case for ceding yet more power to the executive is a crashing non sequitur—irrelevant to the governance problems we have.
“It’s too hard to push through “
That was the excuse my son used to use when he was about 8. He needed to be taught that persistence and working hard with others was the ultimate answer. Unfortunately, that reasoning may just be too hard for this infantile thinking pos president to understand. He just stamps his feet and whines when things get too hard.
But remember: David Brooks is what the NY Times considers a “conservative.” /sarc
He is useless!
Yes, And give Iran the bomb for a stronger Peace.
Brooks is a dangerous man. He fits right in with the Times’ subversive maneuvering and under-the-usual-nincompoop’s-radar propaganda. They know how to use their op-ed page to advantage. Sickening. Have the pseudo-conservative tell people black is white and make those morons THINK!
“Brooks is on my list of don’t look at or listen to.”
My friends and I play, 5 people who you would smack if given a free shot. Brooks always makes our list.
“Brooks is on my list of don’t look at or listen to.”
My friends and I play, 5 people who you would smack if given a free shot. Brooks always makes our list.
Now, that’s the analogy I was groping for but couldn’t come up with it.
Funny how they just assume that the dictator will be benevolent to THEM. Ask a Ukrainian how benevolent Stalin was during the time Walter Durante was writing his "wondrous stories" for the Slimes as Stalin was using starvation as his weapon against the Ukraine.
Mark
when a libtard tells you she thinks it’s a good idea, just reply
“so if sarah palin was president it would still be a good idea?”
and watch their head explode.
Most of their “top” columnists have written articles at some point that would be seen as endorsing a dictatorship or communism.
he would never have written that with Bush in the WH
Dear Mr. Brooks, our Founding Fathers did it this way for a reason, to make it difficult to pass legislation. Despite all of the checks and balances in the system, the federal debt is nearly $17.5 trillion, and the President is allowed to selectively enforce the laws of the land.
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