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Another example of why I don't like David Brooks

There are times when Brooks tries to be a good columnist. Unfortunately, this tends to bring out a great deal of pomposity and not very knowledgeable generalization about history, economics, sociological trends, etcetera. There is a reason why academics have training and professional standards when they do this stuff.

Today's Brooks column showed another common problem with his work. From his pretended Olympian heights, he explains to all of us mere mortals who lack his inside connections that the Republicans, when and if they win Congressional majorities, will be moderate, reasonable, move to the center, engage in productive compromises to promote governance, etc.

There is of course an open empirical question about whether this is true or not. We will find out soon enough. I happen to believe very strongly that the opposite is true - that they will be crazy and irresponsible, playing dangerous chicken games about the debt limit, trying to impeach Obama, passing as many unfunded tax cuts as they can, making no serious effort to rein in spending as this would be unpopular with voters, etcetera. In other words, I expect them to be vastly worse than they were from 2000 through 2006, and that's saying something.

Of course, I might be wrong. We'll see.

But the point is, Brooks is being fundamentally dishonest with his readership in his column - as he often is, because his columnist model is that of the political player, not the honest essayist conveying what he really thinks. He knows perfectly well that, at a minimum, it is far from clear that his claim about how the Republicans will govern is correct. But he is putting out this line of blather for two reasons: (1) to help the Republicans on Election Day (his "team" despite the mutual courtship with Obama and his unease with the crazies), and (2) to try to make it so, in effect trying to help the relative good guys within the Republican governing coalition by holding up the sane approach as the one that of course they will follow.

My own team loyalties cause me to dislike what he is doing on (1) but to hope that he succeeds on (2). But the point is, I don't like to read op-ed columns that are fundamentally dishonest in that the writer is saying not what he actually thinks but what he considers tactically the right thing to say. That's what politicians are for, and we don't need prominent columnists doing it as well.

Full post as published by Start Making Sense on November 02, 2010 (boomark / email).