This David Brooks piece is mostly just an excuse for him to make his hillllllllllarious plumber joke.* But then he realized that he only wrote enough to fill a third of the column and had to fill it with nonsense. I wasn’t going to mention it, but since it’s going around various other blogs, I thought I’d mention it too.
So far this year, both President Obama and Mitt Romney seem more passionate about denying the other side victory than about any plank in their own agendas. Both campaigns have developed contempt for their opponent, justifying their belief that everything, then, is permitted.
In both campaigns, you can see the war-room mentality developing early.
He gives one example of each campaign caring more about denying the other candidate victory than about their own agenda. See of you find the falseness in this equivalence:
In November, the Romney campaign ran a blatantly dishonest ad in which President Obama purportedly admits that if the election is fought on the economy, he will lose. The quote was a distortion, but the effectiveness of the ad was in showing Republican professionals and primary voters that Romney was going to play by gangland rules, that he was tough enough and dishonest enough to do so, too.
Last week, the Obama campaign ran a cheap-shot ad on the death of Osama bin Laden. Part of the ad was Bill Clinton effectively talking about the decision to kill the terrorist. But, in the middle, the Obama people threw in a low-minded attack on Romney. The slam made Clinton look small, it made Obama look small, it turned a moment of genuine accomplishment into a political ploy, but it did follow the rules of gangland: At every second, attack; at every opportunity, drive a shiv between the ribs.
Romney quoting Obama quoting McCain’s adviser 4 years ago, but passing it off as Obama saying it now on the one side. An Obama campaign video talking about the Bin Laden raid and noting that Romney wouldn’t have done it based on things he said in the campaign in context on the other. Really, if those are your extremes, let me suggest one side is worse than the other.
* I mean honestly, he could have chosen from any number of professions in the setup. And “no pun intended” is too clever by half.
It’s hard to separate out one thing from the gibberish that is any David Brooks column that doesn’t consist of Brooks blaming whatever the day’s outrage might be on our collective national moral collapse (in other words, about half his columns).
But his riff in this one bewailing that modern presidential campaigns seize on and magnify minor, idiotic stories and elevate them to days-long “scandals” leaves out that it’s not so much the politicians who magnify them – it’s pundits and talking tiny heads like Brooks.
I hear complete fucking cluelessness is, itself, a moral failing. So is refusing to take responsibility for being a jackass.
I notice a couple of slimy things in the Brooks column: clearly he’s trying to use the terms “gang” and “gangland” in connection with Obama – reminding everyone that he’s BLACK! and thuggish – so as to tell them to be afraid, be VERY AFRAID.
He’s also hitting the “celebrity” meme with the American Idol bullshit early on in the column, and coming back to it in at the end. We’ve heard that one before.
It’s kind of related to a third route of attack on Obama that the right has engaged: that Obama is hollow, or in over his head. Rmoney has tried this in one of the few times he’s sounded genuine: hitting Obama condescendingly over him being a “nice guy” who is, alas, in over his head – which is a subtle hint that Obama got the job inappropriately, or through Affirmative Action. Again, it’s a corollary for “HE”S BLACK AND TOOK A WHITE GUY”S JOB!”