Free Republic

New York Times columnist David Brooks made an astonishing observation about President Obama on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday. "Sometimes he governs like a visitor from a morally superior civilization" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

DAVID BROOKS, PBS NEWSHOUR: ....I think if we're going to control guns, we really have to do it massive. I think I'm all for getting rid of the assault weapons and machine guns and all that tough, but if we want to prevent something like this, we have to really think seriously about drastically reducing the number of guns in our society, and particularly -- this is an old Patrick Daniel Moynihan idea -- the number of bullets. It is very hard to control 300 million guns. The bullets are a little easier to control.

On this weekend’s broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” New York Times columnist David Brooks — who was once profoundly impressed with President Barack Obama — admitted he has soured on the president.“Well, you know, I think — well, I first think it has been the worst campaign I’ve ever covered,” Brooks said. “And I think they’re both ending on the same note they started. Obama’s doing a negative campaign. He’s got an ad out which is called ‘Remember,’ which is about Obama — which is about Romney, the plutocrat. It’s about the flip-flop what we’ve just heard on the...

As America’s strategic and political position in the Middle East continues to deteriorate, President Barack Obama’s political opponents have stepped up their claims that he is an ineffective leader on foreign policy. But New York Times columnist David Brooks isn’t convinced those attacks will work. During his weekly appearance on PBS’s “NewsHour” on Friday, Brooks suggested Obama deserves a pass for remaining calm throughout the crisis, which he said puts a kind of burden on his challenger, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

New York Times columnist David Brooks is the Eddie Haskell of the Fourth Estate. Like the two-faced sycophant in "Leave It to Beaver," Brooks indulges in excessive politeness while currying favor with political authority. He prides himself on an oily semblance of maturity and rational discourse. But the phony "conservative" back-stabber, who has spent the last four years slavering over Barack Obama like a One Direction groupie and trashing the tea party like an MSNBC junkie, isn't fooling anyone. Lately, Brooks has been given to dispensing passive-aggressive advice to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. His column this week titled "Thurston...

Before the barrage of ad homs begins, ask yourself this question: why did the Romneys let themselves get sucked into this kind of talk on Meet the Press (with David Brooks) on Sunday in the first place? Why is she saying that they (the Romneys) know what it is like to struggle, and then proffer her own personal health struggles as evidence that they know what it is like to struggle? Why are they letting themselves get sucked into this.... .... because the inevitable question surfaces and arises: voters will feel empathy towards Ann Romney, but they will ask how...

I’d like to provide a Brooks-esque reintroduction to our President, a man with an always shifting and mysterious background, so that the American people can make a fully informed decision on Nov. 6th. Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961 in Hawaii, Indonesia and Kenya, depending on whether he was applying for President of the United States, a college scholarship for international students, or for a book deal about his struggle with his racial identity. He burst forth from his mother’s womb in a cloud of smoke, which may or may not have been related to the half-empty pack...

New York Times columnist David Brooks told PBS that his one “cavil” was that voters want to hear about jobs and the economy, not taxpayer-subsidized abortion on demand:

The purpose of the Republican convention is to introduce America to the real Mitt Romney. Fortunately, I have spent hours researching this subject. I can provide you with the definitive biography and a unique look into the Byronic soul of the Republican nominee: Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947, in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Virginia and several other swing states. He emerged, hair first, believing in America, and especially its national parks. He was given the name Mitt, after the Roman god of mutual funds, and launched into the world with the lofty expectation that he would someday become...

Conservative author Glenn Beck on Sunday took to Twitter to blast New York Times columnist David Brooks for comments he made last year about the talk radio host's predictions concerning Egypt without President Hosni Mubarak. On PBS's Newshour last February, syndicated columnist Mark Shields mentioned Beck in a discussion about how people attending the CPAC convention viewed the goings-on in Egypt from a domestic political perspective: MARK SHIELDS, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Well, I think it is a lack of self-confidence, surefootedness. They didn`t know what they wanted to say. They weren`t sure. The only one who was really critical that I...

On Friday's PBS NewsHour, both "conservative" David Brooks and liberal Mark Shields thought this was a tough, tight election for Barack Obama. Shields said "it becomes a race about disqualifying, a campaign about disqualifying your opponent. And that's not attractive or appealing. It's not hope and change. It's blood and guts." But Brooks really felt Obama's pain: "So the president is obviously going to try. He is going to have. And to some extent, you have to feel sorry for him. This is in large degree not his fault. Things are happening way beyond his control. I don't believe a...

It might have sounded quite reasonable to David Brooks and his tight  circle of media friends but to most of the rest of us, using the term "ESPN Masculinity" to describe President Obama is just flat out hilarious. Brooks performs a comedy encore at the end of The ESPN Man story in the New York Times with his psychobabble description of Obama's "manliness." These supposed traits listed by Brooks are the reasons why he claims Obama remains somewhat popular despite a lousy economy. First, let us go right to the ESPN Man money quote: Normally, presidents look weak during periods...

Censorship: The pressure on Rush Limbaugh's advertisers is from a group that meets regularly with the White House and runs an Obama Super-PAC funded by unions. The group Media Matters acts like a lobbyist but is not registered as one. It operates in the shadows, outside congressional oversight and unaccountable to voters. This makes its collusion with the White House in the heat of a presidential race a serious matter worthy of investigation. Targeting Limbaugh, a staunch Republican, is no coincidence. If the Obama campaign can silence him, it can knock out the party's most powerful voice for firing up...

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Silver doesn’t quite go so far as to say that it makes a brokered convention or a late-breaking establishment candidate likely, but I’m willing to go that far. There’s just no way the Republican establishment lets Gingrich become their nominee. As Andrew Sullivan pointed out today, you’re already seeing the anti-Gingrich mobilization among conservative thought leaders: Here’s George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Tom Coburn and Ann Coulter, just for starters. There’s this Politico story about all the Washington Republicans who hate Gingrich. Now, I think it’s more likely that this mobilization leads to a Romney win then...

Although many hope that members of the super committee will still reach an 11th hour deal on spending cuts before the November 23 deadline, New York Times columnist David Brooks doubts that any deal will ever be reached, now or in the future. Brooks suspects that United States is headed toward a fiscal crisis much like that of Greece. On Friday night’s broadcast of PBS’s “NewsHour,” Brooks said that despite the best possible groundwork being laid to reach a deal, a deal still couldn’t be made. “Yes, I mean, I’m hearing the exact same thing,” Brooks said. “I think the tragedy...

On Friday’s broadcast of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” host Robert Siegel asked New York Times columnist David Brooks if the surfacing of sexual allegations from the late 1990s reported by Politico last week was “the beginning of the end” for businessman Herman Cain’s presidential run. “There was no beginning,” Brooks said. “He was a TV show that lasted for a little while. Let me stand up for elitist insiders — this is a job for professionals. Running for office is a job for professionals. Governing is a job for professionals. What Herman Cain did this — let’s leave aside the...

The United States is a country that has received many blessings, and once upon a time you could assume that Americans would come together to take advantage of them. But you can no... --snip-- The shale gas revolution challenges the coal industry, renders new nuclear plants uneconomic and changes the economics for the renewable energy companies, which are now much further from viability... --snip-- These problems are real, but not insurmountable. An exhaustive study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded, “With 20,000 shale wells drilled in the last 10 years, the environmental record of shale-gas development is for the...

New York Times columnist David Brooks often receives the scorn of many conservatives for taking positions contrary to ideology in the name of moderation and smart politics. But what did Brooks think of Herman Cain’s Web ad featuring his campaign manager smoking a cigarette at the end of it? Brooks’ impression might surprise some. In his regular appearance on Friday’s PBS “NewsHour,” host Judy Woodruff inquired about the ad and Brooks all but gave it two-thumbs up. “My heart melts for that smile,” Brooks said. “I just I like it. Everybody is going crazy, ‘Oh, it’s terrible.’ First of all,...

Despite Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain's precipitous rise in the polls, New York Times columnist David Brooks seems to think that the Republican presidential nomination is former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s to lose. “It’s not a primary process. In the primary process you have several candidates and they go after each other. We don't have that. We have one plausible candidate and a bunch of other guys who are prepping him for the Obama onslaught. So, basically they attack him.”