David Brooks: the ostensibly conservative New York Times columnist, TV pundit, bestselling author and lecture-circuit thought leader, defines everything that’s wrong with allowing the country’s elite to select our candidates/leaders.
From Brooks’ November 11, 2016 NYT column:
Finally, it seems important to be humbled and taught by this horrific election result. Trump’s main problem in governing is not going to be some fascistic ideology; his main problem is going to be his own attention span, ignorance and incompetence. If he’s left to bloviate while others are left to run the country and push through infrastructure plans, maybe things won’t be disastrous.
…
Trump’s bigotry, dishonesty and promise-breaking will have to be denounced. We can’t go morally numb. But he needs to be replaced with a program that addresses the problems that fueled his assent.
After all, the guy will probably resign or be impeached within a year. The future is closer than you think.
Keep in mind that Mr. Brooks is the elitist who first alerted us to the awesome qualifications that Barack Obama possessed to run the country:
That first encounter is still vivid in Brooks’s mind. “I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks says, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.” - New Republic
Brooks was actually describing himself; peering into a mirror and seeing Barry staring back at him:
Brooks, a conservative writer who joined the Times in 2003 from The Weekly Standard, had never met Obama before. But, as they chewed over the finer points of Edmund Burke, it didn’t take long for the two men to click. “I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging,” Brooks recently told me, “but usually when I talk to senators, while they may know a policy area better than me, they generally don’t know political philosophy better than me. I got the sense he knew both better than me.”
Mind you, he felt that way to the end, writing last year:
Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe we have taken too much for granted, have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply.
Specifically he sited these 4 traits that he sees in Obama: “superior integrity,” “basic humanity,” “soundness in his decision-making” and finally, “grace under pressure.” I’m beginning to think this is more than a bro-mance; I think we’re dealing with a case of Narcissus-by-proxy here.
Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I’m beginning to miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit, regardless of who replaces him”.
Might I humbly suggest that the next time we select a president based on the recommendations of the political elite at least we do so based on something more than their analysis of the crease in his trousers.
Linked By: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and BlogsLucianneLoves, and Free Republic, Thanks!
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