Brooks Then and Brooks Now

Because I live in Washington, DC the idea of engaging in a little Nexis-fu to find a David Brooks column that utterly contradicts the one he published yesterday actually came up at a party. Looks like Henry Farrell's already done the work, noting Brooks' 2005 column on how Team Bush "have learned from centuries of conservative teaching – from Burke to Oakeshott to Hayek – to be skeptical of Sachsian grand plans." Henry remarks:

As Brooks-2007 tells us quite straightforwardly, the notion that George W. Bush and his administration are exemplars of Burkean prudence is an utter nonsense. I don’t think that there is any other reasonable explanation of Brooks’ reticence in 2005 (and indeed before and after) than a willingness to shut up for the cause. While it’s all very nice that he’s coming out and saying these things now, it would obviously have been rather more helpful if he had said it, say, back in 2004, when it might conceivably have helped make a difference.

Mostly true, but I think there's a problem here with portraying Brooks as some kind of evil puppetmaster manipulating the public by hiding Bush's un-Burkean side from view in 2005 (or 2004!) only to reveal it later in 2007. We know from polling data, after all, that there are millions of Americans who thought Bush was a good president in 2004 and 2005, but stopped thinking this over the course of 2005-2006. Brooks, it seems to me, probably just is one of those people. Now one can say to this, fairly, "why didn't he see it earlier?" and I think it's a good question and, indeed, probably a good topic for a column.

I don't see any particular reason to think that your average political commentator is especially discerning about this kind of thing (we're all professional writers, after all, not soothsayers) and, indeed, my general sense is that pundits are probably a lagging indicator of public opinion rather than a leading one. Tom Friedman, for example, only "officially" threw in the towel over Iraq long after the center of public opinion passed this point.

Comments

Brooks is still harping on the "Surge opponents are not serious" talking point, so has he really jumped off the Bush bus?

Posted by stm177 | October 6, 2007 11:25 AM

I do remember that after Katrina, Brooks looked at Mark Shields on the PBS Newshour and said (something like) "Now I understand how you see Bush."

Posted by John G. | October 6, 2007 11:25 AM

Never have seen any reason to take DavidBrooks seriously. The combined weight of all his columns is less than a paraket. For chrissakes, he's a sociologist!! He's made himself a great career being the 'conservative' that liberals think speaks their language. As shown, he doesn't care what he says exactly, that the point is to have 800 words in the Times as a regular gig.

Posted by JohnMcC | October 6, 2007 11:31 AM

Ooops. "parakeet". Thanx to the inner english teacher....

Posted by JohnMcC | October 6, 2007 11:34 AM

Brooks, it seems to me, probably just is one of those people. Now one can say to this, fairly, "why didn't he see it earlier?"...

Iraq and Katrina would be the obvious answers. Although I suspect a lot of people won't agree with this, I'd say that heading into the fall of 2004, the awfulness of the situation in Iraq wasn't quite as obvious as it is now. The capture of Saddam Hussein, after all, provided at least some plausible fodder for spinning good news stories, and people who wanted to hope that the situation in Iraq would improve no doubt bought into the notion that the dictator's trial and punishment would eventually allow the Iraqi people to get on with the process of rebuilding and national reconciliation. Such hopes proved ephemeral. And the government response to the hurricane that devastated New Orleans two years ago finally lifted the scales from the public's eyes. It had now become embarrassingly obvious that the Emperor wore no clothes, and that his main contribution to the country's political culture was a new form of government called fiascoism. Prior to these events, this just wasn't so obvious to non-liberals, or to the public as a whole.

Posted by Jasper | October 6, 2007 11:45 AM

David Brooks is a dishonest, hypocritical enabler of, and apologist for, right-wing hacks whose star is rising.

Posted by Econobuzz | October 6, 2007 11:45 AM

I think David Brooks , seeing conservatism as the premier political ideology in the history of the world (much like his far more gifted fellow conservative Andrew Sullivan), has difficulty reconciling his conservatism-beyond-repute with the absolute horrors of the Bush administration. This is the problem with conservatives like Brooks and Sullivan who have a distaste for the President. They think the problem almost exclusively lies in personnel (and a neoconservatism they used to endorse) and not conservatism itself. They are trying to paint the state of the union as a failure of this President and not conservatism as a whole. That may be the case, but one would think that the failure of this Presidency would force conservatives to recognize their own philosophical shortcomings.

Posted by Matthew Struhar | October 6, 2007 11:46 AM

A more immediate question than "why didn't he see it earlier?" might be, "why should anyone care to read someone who didn't see it earlier?" He's not that smart, he rarely teaches you anything, and he often tells obvious lies. Why read him? The best response is to ignore him.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | October 6, 2007 11:48 AM

Well, one reason to pay attention to him, is that he reflects a certain brand of Republicanism. It's the nanny state suburban quaking in their tennis shoes type conservatives.

Posted by stm177 | October 6, 2007 12:08 PM

The fact that columnists are often such lagging indicators really brings to question, what, honestly, is their use?

As Matt (NTFO) points out, Brooks isn't often very illuminating, though he is occasionally entertaining. Friedman, on the other hand, I've taken to reading only to see what his neo-liberal global business constituency thinks.

Posted by AJ | October 6, 2007 12:13 PM

in addition to all the fine points already made, let me simply add that brooks fancies himself a philosophical sort: if he couldn't figure out that the bush administration had nothing to do with a philosophical conservatism by 2004, he's even more of a dishonest shill than i thought.

with a more nakedly partisan type, the excuse that lots of people still like bush in 2004 can hold.

(alternatively, of course, brooks is a nakedly partisan type and all the self-fancying is just a cover, which is the alternative theory to the notion that brooks has an honest self-image but just isn't very bright.)

Posted by howard | October 6, 2007 12:19 PM

I used to really like David Brooks, and especially his debates with Mark Shields on PBS. Then came the 2004 Democratic Convention. His immediate response was that Kerry had given a terrific speech. Then the next night he said it was awful. In order to ever take him seriously again, I'd need to see a complete list of calls he received in that 24 hour period.

Posted by aleks | October 6, 2007 12:20 PM

Team Bush "have learned from centuries of conservative teaching – from Burke to Oakeshott to Hayek – to be skeptical of Sachsian grand plans."

Even back then it should have been clear this wishful thinking on the part of Brooks. You mean he sincerely believed Bush was familiar with any other Hayek than Salma?

Posted by The October Fool | October 6, 2007 12:25 PM

"For chrissakes, he's a sociologist!!"

He's not even a real one. He's a self-taught "pop sociologist." This means he isn't really familiar with how statistics work, which is one reason his last book was such shit.

Posted by Reality Man | October 6, 2007 12:37 PM

The rats are deserting the sinking bandwagon. Everything he does is opportunistic. He put his money on the wrong horse.

Posted by John Emerson | October 6, 2007 12:43 PM

Brooks fancies himself a philosophical sort

It's all window dressing -- all of his superficial social, historical, philsophical, and theological references -- designed to hide the selfish, greedy, and racist underbelly of his so-called "conservatism."

Posted by Econobuzz | October 6, 2007 12:55 PM

Oh, good lord, if Bush Jr. and the Bush Jr. Republicans were still popular and had won in 2006 Brooks would be saying no such thing today.

None of his ilk care about grand matters of philosophy.

Posted by El_Cid | October 6, 2007 12:57 PM

Brooks' conduct evinces that it's now no longer nice to be a Bush Republican.

Which leaves the country club set in a bind. Because they now risk themselves becoming the NASCAR driven riffraff with whom they have aligned.

They, within their own communities, now risk facing the same sort of decline in their moral and social standing that Bush has caused the United States diplomatically to endure.

Which means that other people might start feeling relieved rather than snubbed when not invited to their social functions.

That is what is at stake. And Brooks, great champion of country club niceness, is attempting to shore them up with his new assertion of "Burkean" sensibility.

Posted by Duncan Kinder | October 6, 2007 1:44 PM

Besides not being very insightful, Brooks is also more interested in a kind of truthiness than truth. If it sounds good and resonates with his prejudices he goes with it.
To avoid the echo chamber effect I'd like to occasionally read intelligent, honest conservatives of good will. Besides Andrew Sullivan, any other recommendations?

Posted by Peter | October 6, 2007 2:03 PM

Being an immigrant from a non-English speaking country, I was thoroughly unfamiliar with that personage. "Tory MP from 18 century, perhaps debating the superior methods of keeping the papists of Ireland in check".

I read Standoford Encyclopedia entry on Burke, and it is still unclear to me in what way can he serve as an inspiration to Conservatives, other than writing some mocking synopsis of the works of French philosophes. In some ways, he was an antithesis of "movement Conservatives", stressing analysis, synthesis, the need for multiple principles balancing each other, art of compromise etc. If my reading is correct, somewhere around 1995 it should become clear to Brooks that Gingrich is not a Burkean, nor any of the new GOP stars in Congress and Senate. For that matter, the old GOP adage, "we are a party of few simple principles" sounds very differently than the description of Burke in Stanford Encyclopedia.

So, at what historical moment could one posit that American Conservatives are Burkean, and what did it mean? Apart that Conservatives who fancy themselves intelectuals just have to invoke a dead white man, with no regard on actual historical facts. I stress that my 20 minutes of reading do not make me an expert, and I ask if there is a political philosopher in the room who can render first aid.

Posted by piotr | October 6, 2007 3:08 PM

Reality Man, please don't denigrate the pops like Dr. Phil, pop psychologist, or Lou Dobbs, pop economist, or even Glen Warner, pop football coach. David Brooks is a cipher, a nullity, a zero. He is a pop nothing.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | October 6, 2007 3:14 PM

Tom Friedman, for example, only "officially" threw in the towel over Iraq long after the center of public opinion passed this point.

OK, but it's imortant to bear in mind that Friedman only came around after being relentlessly mocked by Left Blogistan for his wildly foolish support of the unsupportable Iraq War. Coining and repeating the brilliantly snarky "Friedman Unit" (FU!) and frequently linking to his embarrassing "Suck on this!" Youtube from Charlie Rose are notable examples, but there's certainly no shortage of material.

Regarding Brooks, I posted the link to a Poor Man piece from 8 Jan 2004 over at Crooked Timber's discussion of same. It's about all anyone needs to know about Bobo (read it and then resume ignoring/mocking Mr. Brooks). Check it out: The Conotinuing Decline of David Brooks: An Amateur Anthropologists Analysis.

Posted by ed | October 6, 2007 3:19 PM

A bit of criticism in the stylistic department:

Matthew, I know you have to put out x number of posts per day, and what you do put out is by and large quite good.

But this habit of hitting us over the head with italics by way of making your point is, after however many years of reading you, beginning to grate.

Also, David Brooks is more a prisoner of a hegemonic -- at least in his neighborhood -- worldview (call it the "reasonable" faux-intellectual GOPists) than he is a conscientious spinner a la Mehlman. This is not to say Brooks does not spin, but more than anyone else, he spins himself to himself.

Posted by Ben Cronin | October 6, 2007 4:21 PM

I didn't read the whole column, but there's nothing in what I've read or ever read in Brooks that suggests that he cares that Bush isn't particularly Burkean. The column just points out the obvious -- that Bush isn't particularly Burkean.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | October 6, 2007 5:27 PM

I think piotr is asking the right questions. For one thing, an earlier vintage of Brooks rejected the whole idea that American conservatism was ever Burkean.

My view is that the need to root American conservatism in Burke etc reflects the pretensions of a few Harvard-centric influential pundits but is otherwise a pretty much useless device for understanding American politics.

Posted by P O'Neill | October 6, 2007 5:28 PM

The simplest explanation is that Brooks-2007 simply doesn't remember what Brooks-2005 wrote.

Posted by jonp72 | October 6, 2007 5:31 PM

piotr is right on. When I started becoming interested in politics as a kid, I was always confused why people would call Republicans the small government, big tent party. I see more of Burke's positive qualities today in American liberals than American conservatives. After Clinton, the Hayeks and Friedmans of the US had no real reason to vote Republican when they could just vote DLC. That means the committed Republicans left who could never vote Democrat are the white racist religious radicals.

Posted by Reality Man | October 6, 2007 6:25 PM

Looks like Matt is auditioning for something.

Posted by gregor | October 6, 2007 7:21 PM

To be more charitable, Brooks may realize that he wrote nonsense in 2005. Hamilton and Reagan sharing the Enlightement faith in the power of reason? I mean, Reagan and reason in the same sentence?

If one has to believe his hagiographers, Reagan based his belief on personal revelation, also known as gut feeling. Famously, the intelectual underpinning of his domestic policy were presented on a napkin. Foreign policy was similarly based on one or two "deeply felt" slogans. This is more or less official Republican belief.

It is a hard patch to hoe, trying to be a Republican intelectual. Liberals laugh at you, and your own folks do not give you respect either.

For this reason, AEI has its in-house theologians, who put together some ideas from Gospel, and even more from Ayn Rand. This is OK with neo-cons who share Marx's belief that religion is opium for the people --- except that they view it as a good thing. But since neo-cons cannot tell what they think in public, they must pretend to follow some philosopher, but it matters very little which one.

Brooks commiserated the plight of neo-cons so many times that he probably is a self-styled neo-con. Which also explains why such a large proportion of neo-cons is Jewish. Non-Jews Republicans usually simply adhere to the theology. I would like to see a properly decorated Republican church, with a grand oil painting of Archangel Metatron delivering THE napkin to Arthur Laffer, In another, archangel Michael adopts the face of Edward Teller to tell Reagan the Good News about brilliant pebbles and Star War defence. In another side chapel we can see St. Ronald explelling striking flight controllers.

Posted by piotr | October 6, 2007 7:28 PM

Sinking ship.

Posted by dowah | October 6, 2007 8:06 PM

"pundits are probably a lagging indicator of public opinion"

Newspapers in general are lagging indicators. Other than what some spokesperson said or some bomb that blew up, the newspaper is always the last to know.

Posted by Bloix | October 6, 2007 8:15 PM

You give the hacktacular Brooks too much credit. Intellectual honesty? Integrity? He shills for the Republicans. Always has. Always will.

Posted by Lilybelle | October 6, 2007 8:50 PM

....This is not to say Brooks does not spin, but more than anyone else, he spins himself to himself. Posted by Ben Cronin

Spot on!

I am not ashamed to admit I find that style interesting reading at times, certainly more interesting than the type of bloggers or pundits who emphasize pontification or outrage. He also seems to specialize a lot in pondering generalizations, investigating them for possible spin potential. I do buy aleks' story of him changing his opinion because of phone calls: that fits with him not being an ideological plotter--I don't think he is.

This brings it back to Yglesias' point of some pundits being a lagging indicator of at-large public opinion. I think Brooks often fits that, especially with his more sociological/cultural stuff. He takes "viral memes" he sees operating out in the public sphere and tries to tie them together with generalizations. Since he's not a genius, what one gets from that is an idea of what other average joes might be thinking along the same lines.

Posted by artappraiser | October 7, 2007 12:20 AM

There's that longstanding belief that columnists are supposed to be journalists with decades of experience - the belief being that all that time reporting the news makes one wise.

The core of that is the columnists, then, should be ahead of the curve, should be (if not soothsayers) discerning in their judgment, and wise to boot.

I don't see why anyone would want a columnist that's not ahead of the curve. Why pay them to say what everyone thought last year?

Posted by Dap | October 7, 2007 1:10 AM

I don't at all pretend to be an expert on Burke, but I do recall that the subtitle of Russel Kirk's book The Conservative Mind, which by many is considered to be a founding text, is "From Burke to Eliot."
My understanding is this: Burke was a skeptic concerning the French Revolution, and predicted that the proclaimed ideals of the revolution would be thwarted by reality. In this regard, modern conservatives are skeptics of liberal "revolutionaries" who believe in social engineering.
For those who consider Reagan to be unintelligent or the antithesis of reason, you should read his recently released radio messages, which he edited firsthand. He was not an idiot, and many people, like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, credit him with being the primary force in bringing down the Soviet Union and ending the Cold War. (It's not just American right-wingers who believe this.)

Posted by another point | October 7, 2007 9:11 AM

[Reagan's] "radio messages which he edited firsthand"

First, while I think that Reagan was an idiot, I did not make that claim as the proof is a bit elusive. I claimed that Reagan was not credited with any kind of deep thinking but for "sticking to simple truths that he deeply felt". In other words, he was credited to be a charismatic leader rather than a cerebral one. So he could be an inspiration, yea. Especially to polite Havel and not-so-brainy Walesa.

Second, I suspect that those radio messages are not quite on the level of Federalist Papers. What does it mean "first hand editing", by the way? That he wrote those messages first and some editors were proofreading? Then one would write "written by X himself". Editing is inherently second hand. A whiff of puffery here.

Third, Republican writers were condemming Enlightement delusions of liberals on regular basis. If I recall, Brooks himself did it, perhaps not condemning but just pitying liberals for sticking to increasingly unpopular Enlightement while GOP is following the increasingly popular Great Awakening.

When I am saying that Republicans in general, and Reagan in particular, oppose Reason, I mean that they opposed the idea of Reason that could trump Religion and Gut Feelings. Perhaps Eisenhower or Nixon did not, but the more radical generation that included Reagan as president was in that mold.

Republicans also oppose reliance of science etc., which is related although not the same.

Posted by piotr | October 7, 2007 12:36 PM

Are you aware that in the former Soviet Union, Reagan's speeches were passed around as samizdata (underground)? And that some Soviet citizens kept pictures of Reagan in their wallets as a sign of dissent?

Posted by nah | October 7, 2007 3:22 PM

With all due respect,

“I think there's a problem here with portraying Brooks as some kind of evil puppetmaster manipulating the public by hiding Bush's un-Burkean side from view in 2005 (or 2004!) only to reveal it later in 2007.”

I don’t think this is an accurate description or paraphrasing of Henry’s criticism of Brooks’ writings. (1.)

Henry wrote that he was “frustrat[ed] with ... Brooks’ NYT columns,” that seemed to be “a good Brooks who seems thoughtful and interesting, and a bad Brooks, who behaves, not to put too fine a point on it, like a party-line hack.” To provide an example of this "Jekyll-and-Hyde act," he compares two Brooks articles, and concludes "I don't think that there is any other reasonable explanation of Brooks' reticence in 2005 (and indeed before and after) than a willingness to shut up for the cause."

Arguing that Brook sometimes writes like a party line hack, who, on at least one subject, displayed a willingness to shut up for the cause, is very different than ."portraying Brooks as some kind of evil puppetmaster manipulating the public by hiding Bush's un-Burkean side from view in 2005 (or 2004!) only to reveal it later in 2007."

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(1.) The Principle of Charity

If a participant’s argument is reformulated by an opponent, it should be expressed in the strongest possible version that is consistent with the original intention of the arguer. If there is any question about that intention or about implicit parts of the argument, the arguer should be given the benefit of any doubt in the reformulation.

A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion, Eyes Wide Open In Asia blog
http://culture.wordpress.com/2006/03/07/a-code-of-conduct-for-effective-rational-discussion/

THE PRINCIPLE OF CHARITY
principle of charity: adopt the paraphrase or interpretation that makes the arguer as reasonable as possible
Quine's formulation: "Do not impute silliness unnecessarily": not unless loyalty requires it.
rationale: to enable you to be loyal to the arguer's intent and to the would-be argument.

The Golden Rule of Clarifying
Golden rule: Paraphrase others as you would have them paraphrase you.
you'd rather be interpreted as [arguing] truly and logically, than falsely and illogically. I.e., aim to select the interpretation that is most likely to make the argument sound.

Erring on the side of charity not so bad . . . maybe good, even.
Additional advantage of giving the argument, not just the arguer, the benefit of the doubt. If you refute the most charitable construal of the argument possible you refute all the less charitable construals as well.
A frequently used device in philosophical argument: to formulate improved versions of the arguments (of others) that you're criticizing.
Aquinas was said to render the arguments of his adversaries more perspicuously than they themselves ever could.

A Framework for Clarifying

http://members.aol.com/wutsamada2/crithink/wilson3.htm

Posted by Tom Doyle | October 8, 2007 5:33 AM