Peter Mehlman: A Deadline for David Brooks: All I'm saying is, it doesn't seem like Mr. Brooks, despite having a thoughtful intelligence that doesn't go excessively far astray in absolutely every column, should be doing a secondary gig at PBS ahead of his primary gig at the Times.
as to the substance here, re Brooks, I have little int in him bcs eh: Bobos in Paradise.
comments
-From time to time I can't take Brooks any longer and so advise the PBS staff, of course to no avail. Brooks of course is the leftmost feather of the extreme right wing.Mark Shields is a nice enough guy but to paraphrase the famous quote from a debate of the last century, he's no Robert Scheer .... or Chris Hedges...... or Amy Goodman. I hope others will forcefully suggest to the News Hour that they might even improve their ratings if they paired one of the true believers hanging out at Fox News or the National Review with just about any of the columnists at Scheer's blog "Truthdig" for discussions that might range beyond marginal shadings of "common knowledge".
-He is a conservative apologist who tries to appear reasonable. This allows him to write drivel and deliver commentary on News Hour with an air of a "nice" guy. I prefer the blowhards. More honesty.
-How can one be honest and partisan at the same time? Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, the androgynous blond and others are blowhards. Are any of them honest?
-Mr. Brooks has become offensive for three main reasons:
1.He has lost one of the best aspects of conservatives: a relentless optimism even in the face of adversity.
2. Excessively praising Ms. Palin for meeting barest minimum standards at Thursday's debate.
3. Bottom line--The Right is the conservative party, the party of integrity, personal responsibility & individual excellence. over against wh, the left is what? the party of the marginalized? the right is for meritocracy, the left for equality ~ Supporting the ill-experienced, ill educated and chronically dishonest Gov. Palin damages his credibility in a way he might not recover from. Note to Mr. Brooks--this campaign will be over in a month, but we (you and your public) will be together a long, long time. I'm not sure you can spare the credibility you've lost over your bizarre fawning of Palin and subtle trashing of Obama.
-Just so you know, Brooks was on NPR's All Things Considered and stated that the McCain engine had run out of steam and it was too late in the election cycle for him to regain hsi momentum. He predicted Obama would win the election.
-Brooks has been demonstrably wrong concerning just about everything for the last several years, starting with the Iraq war. So those of us who were right are supposed to listen to him exactly why? For pundits, as for the Bush administration, being repeatedly wrong apparently confers some mysterious prestige now. In truth, of course, there is no mystery about it. These pundits are touted because they push the ruling class agenda, which just so happens to be antithetical to the interests of most Americans. But you'll never hear that from them, because they are lying shills. Look at their frozen-acid reaction when Colbert told Bush a few truths right in front of them.

--I've been watching PBS since its inception, but my respect for the network is starting to erode, and Brooks is the reason why.
-I was surprised when Brooks criticized Biden for not mentioning Obama enough times and most of all for saying the senator did not make a strong enough case that an Obama administration would be significantly different from a McCain administration. On the contrary, I thought Biden did an excellent job of enumerating specific ways (i.e. tax cut for middle class, energy policies) in which the Obama administration would be an improvement over McCain's record. yes me too. Again and again he repeated his contention that McCain's record does not prove he will do things any differently from the Bush administration. One of my favorite Biden moments was when he said McCain is not a maverick about the things people care about. So true.

-My wife and I also watched the debate on PBS and avoided any post analysis. Why? For the reasons Mr. Mehlman stated. I saw it. I don't anyone telling me what I saw with my lyin' ears and eyes. well but you can be int in what other ppl make of wh you are seeingAs Robert Zimmerman said "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
--I didn't need anyone to tell me what I saw either. that's not why I watched the post debate analysis. I wanted to see what other people thought they saw.right-o.

~ glib:
-I had a friend who once went through a stage when he thought Thomas Friedman actually had something to say. He's over that now, and luckily he managed to miss that stage entirely with David Brooks.
--I went through that stage with Friedman too, and had one with whiskey as well. I'm over both now. I sometimes miss the whiskey. "Getting over you is not that hard to do: I've done it a thousand times a day."