David Brooks fails the "Big Test"

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Tuesday, February 24, 2009 - 4:28 PM Share

David Brooks's insight and intellectual integrity have never impressed me much, but his column in today's NY Times is a low mark even for him. After reminding us that he read Edmund Burke in college and used to be a liberal, he announces that the fate of Obama’s programs will be "the big test" between liberal and conservative views of the world. Liberals supposedly believe in human reason and the capacity of government to conduct transformative solutions; conservatives are "epistemologically modest" and skeptical of "top-down" initiatives. Here's the money quote:

We're on the cusp of the biggest political experiment of our lifetimes. If Obama is mostly successful, then the epistemological skepticism natural to conservatives will have been discredited...If they mostly fail, then liberalism will suffer a grievous blow, and conservatives will be called upon to restore order and sanity."

Such shamelessly partisan pseudo-intellectualism is Brooks's stock-in-trade, but where he's been the past eight years? George W. Bush and the GOP conservatives inherited a strong economy and a budget surplus, and a country whose international image was mostly favorable. And then they squandered them all with a thoroughness that almost seems deliberate. There was no "epistemological modesty" involved when Bush placed loyalty above competence and let lobbyists and other special interests loose in Washington, or when he launched a foolish and ill-planned war in an attempt to transform the entire Middle East. And let us not forget that Brooks himself was an enthusiastic supporter of these policies; I guess he forgot his Burke back when his party was in power.

The result of these "conservative" policies, as we all know to our sorrow, is the most serious combination of domestic and foreign policy challenges to face America in decades. But if Obama fails to clean up the mess left by his predecessor, it is "liberalism" that will have failed. Huh?

EXPLORE:POLITICS, BUSH'S LEGACY, CULTURE, MEDIA, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

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HKEIRC

5:13 PM ET

February 24, 2009

Epistemological Skepticism

Thank you for your take on Mr Brooks. I read your article and at the break I see the face of Mr Perle. No words are needed. Well maybe your one - HUH?

GRAND SEN-OR

10:31 PM ET

February 24, 2009

if not cons/libs then libs/cons

The result of these "conservative" policies, as we all know to our sorrow, is the most serious combination of domestic and foreign policy challenges to face America in decades. But if Obama fails to clean up the mess left by his predecessor, it is "liberalism" that will have failed. Huh?

It looks like you have quite a simple world out there - cons and libs world. Maybe DB should supply a vote count of libs and cons on key decision makings as a bases for his predictions of his

the biggest political experiment of our lifetimes

that would be more realistic wouldn't it?
But when the National Interest is at stake vote counting becomes cosmetics;-> (according to the SATFP).

In old-times when people were free to carry swords they could warn their leadership when they swear on the consitution that they will not go astray from it, announcing that if they do they will put them on the right track with the tips of their swords. Nowadays the Guys&Dolls just laugh at you saying "Constitution?! What Constitution?! You mean that goddamned piece of paper! Go away!".

"I am walking down the same narrow road
But the only difference!! I can't carry my sword";->

from Old Times Gone Astray Lyrics

Grand Sen~or

PETER N W

11:09 PM ET

February 24, 2009

a low mark even for you

You're going to cast an admiring stare at Frank Rich in one post but then in another take a snarky potshot at David Brooks for his supposed lack of intellectual integrity?
David Brooks is a shameless partisan? The guy who called Sarah Palin a cancer?

Seriously, Professor Walt? I suppose slamming David Brooks is part and parcel of your pseudo-contrarian persona. Is there anybody to the right of Frank Rich in the public intellectual sphere whose insight does impress you? If not, I daresay some self-examination is in order. The echo chamber gets mighty loud sometimes.

DNEXON

12:28 AM ET

February 25, 2009

The Palin test

David Brooks only passed the "Palin Test"(tm) because he realized he'd be up again the wall when the revolution came. He's still a shameless partisan... he's just got some limits to how far he'll shill.

In fact, the true test of a shameless partisanship is using different evaluative standards based on the relevant party. Here, Walt gets it exactly right: Brooks lost his license to invoke Burke during the Bush Administration (what with supporting a "whole cloth" democratic revolution via intervention and all that). Its the same thing with only hand wringing over budget deficits when the Democrats are in power, or complaining about the lack of "humility" in Clinton foreign policy until you get to prosecute your own grand agenda.

PETER N W

2:15 AM ET

February 25, 2009

wait wait

I guess I just find it laughable when someone who invokes Frank Rich in support of his own intellectual ideas turns around and accuses David Brooks, of all people, of shameless partisanship. Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh? Sure. And then to make some snarky comment. It's really low class in my opinion.

MDREW

9:45 AM ET

February 25, 2009

Hey Spaz N W,

At the end of a long post explaining his own thinking, Walt merely agrees with one specific point Rich had made. He didn't call him his intellectual godfather. Sorry, but it's your own reactionary thinking that is exposed when a writer merely mentioning a particular argument of someone you hate causes you to ascribe all of the things that are hateful about that person to the person doing the mentioning.

And just because to you nutcases out there think it looks like a liberal conspiracy of some sort when someone agrees with a particular argument somewhere and then "turns around" and expresses a negative view of someone with contrary views, doesn't mean that it looks that way to us regular people. It actually just looks sane.

PETER N W

11:33 PM ET

February 25, 2009

hateful?

I don't hate Frank Rich. I just don't think he should be taken seriously as a political writer. David Brooks was taking a big picture outlook of the possible consequences of a Obama Presidency, and somehow that gets turned into shameless partisanship by Professor Walt. I don't see a liberal conspiracy, I just see a lack of serious thinking on Professor Walt's part. At some point when things go wrong, he won't always be able to blame George W. Bush. At some point the buck will stop with Barack Obama and his ideology.

MDREW

8:56 AM ET

February 26, 2009

Well okay.

I agree that Brooks isn't a raging partisan. His partisanship is much more subtle and obscured, making it the more pernicious. I like about two out of three of his columns and then the third one he just loses me by all the petty little traps he sets. And you have to know policy pretty well to understand what he does, but he does it. Moreover, if you're in agreement with him on issues, it would make perfect sense that you would like him. He's an okay writer and I read him even though I disagree with most of what he says.

Frank Rich on the other hand lays it all on the table, a quality that really should be unambiguously praised by all. It makes the task of deriding him if you are inclined to do so much much easier. Rich has to carry around the burden of his history as a theater reporter, and that perhaps understandably detracts from his reputation as a serious commentator. But when comments on serious topics are at issue, accusations of unseriousness are rather akin to hatred. Or rather, such allegations render the question of whether you hate him unimportant. But I believe his work speaks for itself. He is remarkable at synthesizing and teasing out patterns among the events of a given week. Anyone who denies that is simply refusing to see. He certainly is provocative at times but in this day and age is that remotely an indictment for an opinion writer?

As to a lack of serious thinking (apparently a cardinal sin in your book) on Prof Walt's part, you're in good company making that claim. I'll let him speak for his own thinking and leave it at that, except only to say that I find his thinking plenty serious just speaking for myself. I still don't get why measured approval for one thing Rich wrote combined with a rejection of Brooks is anything more than utterly unremarkable, but then you probably also would deny that the center of American politics has shifted far to the right in the last twenty years, too.

As to Obama taking responsibility, hasn't he said that if the economy doesn't turn around by 2012, we should just lose him and spare any tears? Does it get more straight-up than that? Do you want to deny that what he has on his plate at the moment is in all reality the massive shit sandwich Bush ordered up for us and then got up and left without paying for a month ago? If you do, I don't really want to hear it. Save it for pajamas media.

Bush kept us safe, though. You do have that in your column.

BLUE13326

1:02 AM ET

February 25, 2009

Brooks is an idiot (and he's

Brooks is an idiot (and he's even worse on television) but Frank Rich really should have stuck to his original (and only) area of expertise: theater critic.

FRED C.

1:27 AM ET

February 25, 2009

Brooks...

I simply can not read Brooks anymore. Even after reading this post, I thought, geez, I should go see what he says, and I literally could not get past, "When I was a college freshman I had to read Edmund Burke..." Did he take a class in pompous as a college student as well? Hell, by all indicators he got his frickin' Masters in pompous.

I suppose being a columnist is a good job, and God knows it can't be easy to churn stuff out column after column. But I really don't think these guys should be taken half as seriously as they are. Sometimes I think the Times should do away with the whole columnist thing.

FULANA

6:01 AM ET

February 25, 2009

The words "conservative" and

The words "conservative" and "liberal" have lost all meaning; the only function they serve is to stir up emotion and confusion in the reader/listener.
You claim that conservatives are modest and skeptical of top-down initiatives? Where does that leave "I'm the Decider" Bush? I thought conservatives were supposed to be fiscally conservative but wasn't it the conservatives who were in power the last 8 years that crashed our economy? And aren't liberals supposed to be in favor of programs that uplift the people? Why is Obama throwing money with both hands at the same financial elite that Bush's TARP already gifted with hundreds of billions? Wasn't it Wall Street firms at the top of donor lists for both the Obama and McCain campaigns?
And just how do liberals and conservatives differ when it comes to foreign policy? Both groups will sprain their ankles to get to the podeum first and declare their unquestioned loyalty to Israel.
We are under one party rule, guys. One party with two wings: a Democrat/Liberal wing and a Republican/Conservative wing. And when it comes to the big decisions, they're all on the same page. They don't give a shit what we think because even when we're out in the streets protesting we're just a "focus group" like Bush said. The rest of the time we can bicker among ourselves about who's right, the conservatives or the liberals, and root for our favorite politician, all the while confusing democracy for a spectator sport.

GRAND SEN-OR

6:54 AM ET

February 25, 2009

That is a realistic comment.

That is a realistic comment, thank you.

about who's right

begs the question "right? according to what?".
if you had a contract with your leadership and she behaved according to the contract then you could say she is right, but if she didn't perform according to the contract that she sweared on then she is dead wrong and she should pay for it or you should interfere immediately to correct her. But in a "state" environment you don't have this power, all power are robbed from you and it is in the hands of the Monopoly. She uses all the means to keep you in the dark arguing it is a requirement of the National Interest etc...by the time you know what was going on then it is too late.

But if you break the Monopoly into multiple power points then it would be easier to supervise your leadership perform as you will in your close-knit unit - Socio-Politico-Economic-Entity (SPEE). You would be represented better.
But to create such an environment needs paradigm-shift initiated and supported by new Socio-Politico-Economic (SPE) conceptual structures.

Grand Sen~or

BRETT

12:46 PM ET

February 25, 2009

Brooks is occasionally an

Brooks is occasionally an interesting read, but as Dr. Walt pointed out, this article is really laughable in light of the fact that Brooks supported the nation-building project in Iraq. Someone with "Burkean modesty" or even just serious Realism for a viewpoint would have wiped out Saddam, shook the hand of the successor government, and gotten the hell out.

HENRY PELIFIAN

2:34 PM ET

February 26, 2009

Fails the Big Test

We apparently live in a society that those in the press and elected office who get it wrong on the big issues are rarely or if ever, held accountable for their words or actions. The repercussions for failure in our democracy appear to be silence or a whimper in the mainstream press and television news.

PAT FROST

6:23 AM ET

February 27, 2009

I think Brooks brought up a

I think Brooks brought up a serious point that what the Obama administration is attempting to do is a tremendous reach. Obama is attempting to transform many aspects of our society and governance and Brooks is right to acknowledge that great change comes with great risks. There is a strong possibility that the US will end up having to reverse at least a portion of Obama's institutions and policies sometime in the future because they ended up either being complete boondoggles or had 'unintended consequences'. I think it is important we have cautious and thoughtful appraisals during this tumultuous time, and Brooks, though flawed, helps in this regard.

PS: Frank Rich is a joke

MDREW

6:56 AM ET

February 27, 2009

Obama ran on change and won.

He's delivering or dying trying. Brooks' concerns are duly noted.

P.S. Saying it doesn't make it true.

JHM

12:25 PM ET

February 27, 2009

The Rake's Progress

This morning (Friday 27 Feb 09) little Davey decided to break with the Big Movement altogether by professin’ to be more in favor of Democrat Party™ brand health care than we jackasses are ourselves.

I expect the laddie will in future try to pretend that he and Eddie B. are the alone true conservatives, with Dr. Limbaugh and Lady Coulter and M. le Baron du McConnell and Freiherr von Cantor (&c. &c.) relegated to some shabby neocategory of sub-Burkean God-knows-whats.

D. Brooks is a very tiny tail and The Conservative Movement is positively a Great Dane of politics, so it is easy to guess how that tug-of-war will end. The real question will only be what we call Davey after calling him "an apostate conservative."

Of "epistemological skepticism" I can detect no sign in the Brave New Brooks. The cocksure certainty in the second half of today's scribble that Congress can never under any circumstances do anythin’ right would do credit to Sir Oracle: "I wish I were as sure of anything as Macaulay is of everything."

Happy days.