Boo-Boos in Paradise. David Brooks' active imagination.

[Paul Hood]

http://www.phillymag.com/ArticleDisplay.php?id=350

A few years ago, journalist David Brooks wrote a celebrated article for the Atlantic Monthly, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible," in which he examined the country's cultural split in the aftermath of the 2000 election, contrasting the red states that went for Bush and the blue ones for Gore. To see the vast nation whose condition he diagnosed, Brooks compared two counties: Maryland's Montgomery (Blue), where he himself lives, and Pennsylvania's Franklin (a Red county in a Blue state). "I went to Franklin County because I wanted to get a sense of how deep the divide really is," Brooks wrote of his leisurely northward drive to see the other America across "the Meatloaf Line; from here on there will be a lot fewer sun-dried-tomato concoctions on restaurant menus and a lot more meatloaf platters." Franklin County was a place where "no blue New York Times delivery bags dot driveways on Sunday mornings … people don't complain that Woody Allen isn't as funny as he used to be, because they never thought he was funny," he wrote. "In Red America churches are everywhere. In Blue America Thai restaurants are everywhere. In Red America they have QVC, the Pro Bowlers Tour, and hunting. In Blue America we have NPR, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and socially conscious investing."

Brooks, an agile and engaging writer, was doing what he does best, bringing sweeping social movements to life by zeroing in on what Tom Wolfe called "status detail," those telling symbols -- the Weber Grill, the open-toed sandals with advanced polymer soles -- that immediately fix a person in place, time and class. Through his articles, a best-selling book, and now a twice-a-week column in what is arguably journalism's most prized locale, the New York Times op-ed page, Brooks has become a must-read, charming us into seeing events in the news through his worldview.

There's just one problem: Many of his generalizations are false. According to Amazon.com sales data, one of Goodwin's strongest markets has been deep-Red McAllen, Texas. That's probably not, however, QVC country. "I would guess our audience would skew toward Blue areas of the country," says Doug Rose, the network's vice president of merchandising and brand development. "Generally our audience is female suburban baby boomers, and our business skews towards affluent areas." Rose's standard PowerPoint presentation of the QVC brand includes a map of one zip code -- Beverly Hills, 90210 -- covered in little red dots that each represent one QVC customer address, to debunk "the myth that they're all little old ladies in trailer parks eating bonbons all day."

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[boobooday]

1. I read this

And I found it, and Brooks, to be totally disgusting. He is Ann Coulter, with more manners/mannerisms. But he is deeply mean and stupid.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. I don't think generalizations like this are helpful

For example, I live south of Branson MO in Arkansas. My rural county has one of the higher concentrations of alternative energy in the US. The oldest private school is one founded by environmentalists. There is a lesbian commune and several spiritual groups who exist alongside the local fundamentalist churches. Some of our anti-war protestors also like to go hunting in the fall because they know that the meat they get won't be full of hormones and antibiotics.

Springfield MO, home of John Ashcroft, has large fundamentalist churches and a fundamentalist college. They also have a great NPR station, some good coffee shops and health food stores, some wonderful ethnic restaurants (including the best Indian restaurant anywhere), meditation groups, and a symphony orchestra.

I think that this country is far more diverse than is supposed in the article, and that people of very different opinions and lifestyles live side by side.

[Cocoa]

3. I write the NYT's public editor about Brooks's facts

him and Friedman, warning them that these two are going to be their next Jayson Blair.

[The Zanti Regent]

5. Everyone at the Screw York Times lies except Krugman

They are ALL just as dishonest as Jayson B. LIAR.

Krugman is the only one who tells the truth!

[izzie]

4. I guess it is like he thinks we should be.

I lived in Rockville, Md and it had the top income in the US at that time even if it is blue. I still think the red/blue map should be shades of purple.How people live seem to be in little groups every place in the US. Can drive by gated places right next to working seaport towns. I can guess how they vote.Lots of well dresses people go to the library and do not buy books but read them.Hard to class what people do.

[Zookeeper]

6. It's entertaining, but..

categories and sterotypes of that sort are intended to make things much more simple than they are. Our country is large and diverse, it just can't be reduced to formulas.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. The current (April) issue of Harper's

has an article that touches on this.

Harper's has been excellent lately.

[Lexingtonian]

8. I remember that Atlantic Monthly article

In fact, I remember thinking "What load of crap" and feeling quite sure that David Brooks had not mentally been out of the New York-Washington corridor in about twenty years.

He is the perfect illustration of mediocrity: the print media were looking for a conservative who sounded as if he had some kind of meaningful thinking and powers of observation, and could explain this Red/Blue thing articulately without using words like "militant", "reactionary", "delusional", "mythology", and "bigotry". (Unfortunately we're now finding out that these are the only words that accurately get at the distinction.)

In David Brooks we now have a heir apparent to George Will: a mild-mannered person who will, in return for significant remuneration, betray to us what the clever idiot class is 'thinking'.