David Brooks flip-flops on Kerry's speech

[Cocoa]

Kerry must have caught Brooks off guard, he didn't have his talking points together in time to say them during his post-speech discussion on PBS. Or else he was chicken to say them in front of Lehrer and Shields.


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/31/opinion/31brooks.html

<snip>

I should never have gone back and read the speech again. I should never have gone back on Friday morning, in the unforgiving light of day, and re-examined the words Kerry had so forcefully uttered the night before.

What an incoherent disaster. When you actually read for content, you see that the speech skirts almost every tough issue and comes out on both sides of every major concern. The Iraq section is shamefully evasive. He can't even bring himself to use the word "democratic" or to contemplate any future for Iraq, democratic or otherwise. He can't bring himself to say whether the war was a mistake or to lay out even the most meager plan for moving forward. For every gesture in the direction of greater defense spending, there are opposing hints about reducing our commitments and bringing the troops home.

He proves in the speech that he can pronounce the word "alliances," and alliances are important, but alliances for what? You can't base an entire foreign policy on process.

Then I remembered that, of course, the Great Co-opter has to try gauzily to please everyone. He has to play to the 86 percent of the delegates who say the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq, as well as the Clintonite foreign policy elites who supported the war. He has to play to the Sharptons as well as the Liebermans.


more...

[barbaraann]

1. I think Pat Buchanan flip-flopped, too.

I caught a little of him on tv yesterday and that's what it seemed like to me.

[Coventina]

2. The man is a yellow-bellied coward!

I watched the PBS coverage all four nights and every time he was called on his crap he turned into a simpering little pansy.

He did it with Jimmy Carter, he did it with Howard Dean.

When he's confronted, he visibly shrinks.

Oh, but now that he's had time to think about it, he can go on the warpath in an op-ed piece.

What a pathetic little weasel!!!!

He probably pays people to give him "Cleveland Steamers", he's such a little self-hating prick!

[regnaD kciN]

3. Sounds a little like the O'Reilly Syndrome...

...In other words, only be able to function effectively when you get to set the agenda and block anyone with a different point of view from being heard.

Although, to be honest, that's par for the course for the right-wing media as a whole.

[Leilani]

4. I caught that too!!

Saw the raves on PBS...saw the critique in NY Times.

Talk about flip-flops!

[tomfodw]

5. Nothing new here

David Brooks has at times this year written stuff that is incoherent and actually incomprehensible. At other times he has written stuff that is so ridiculous that you really have to wonder if he actually believes it himself. He has become a monstrous and pure enabler for the Incompetent-in-Chief by refusing to demand at any point even 1% of the strictness of Dubya that he requires 24/7 from Kerry.

If the Times had any guts, they'd do a Coulter on this guy and find some conservative commentator (there must be at least one, somewhere in the universe) who can write a coherent sentence with an argument an intelligent reader can actually follow. In the name of decent journalism even if not in the name of political fairness.

[buff2]

6. I just fired off this e-mail to that repuke freak

You are a lying,sickening bu$h loving pile of pond scum. Your column is despicable. Not surprising coming from a brown shirt America hating,unpatriotic,kool-aid drinking twit who supports the most arrogant,bullying,blood thirsty little mental midget who stole the election in 2000.I am sick and tired of the Democrat bashing. Just because you are a republican doesn't make you above everyone else. People have finally woke up,and we are going to take back this country so you may as well change your tune,big boy.......your next President will be JOHN KERRY. We have had enough of the rightwingnut strangle hold on this country. It's long over due for a change and by God it's COMING. Face it!!! Maybe when you get your head out of bu$h's ass,do you think it would be too much trouble to help that idiot string a sentence together without mangling it to pieces? Also,if you get a chance,do yourself a favor and go see F-911 and get an education. It's really hilarious how republicans say it's full of "lies" when most of it comes straight out of BU$H'S mouth! Republicans know deep inside he is a LIAR and a FRAUD!
FUCK BU$H
VOTE FOR JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT!

[soleft]

7. I see "On Paradise Drive" is on NY Time's "Also Selling List"

I don't think Brooks influences too many people

[Cocoa]

8. two dem speakers refuted Brooksian sociology

Brooks is the premier pusher of the "red state/blue state" crap, and both Obama and Kerry, and maybe people I missed, specifically denounced that way of thinking.

No comment from Brooks on these direct challenges...