The Political Chase

David Brooks - On the Merry-Go-Round Too Long

David Brooks, (sub. req.) yet again, provides ample evidence of the depth of his intellect and awareness of the environment.  Brooks miserably attempts to coincide with his colleagues, John Tierney and Nicholas Kristoff, by dismissing the severity of the Plame Wilson matter that is asphixiating the White House. As I wrote earlier, Tierney and Krisoff have allowed the cheese to slip from their cracker; Brooks dropped his and then stepped on it.

The Bush administration is not in quite the same bind the Reagan administration was in. There is no one big scandal (sorry, Plamegate is not it). But at key moments - Social Security, Katrina, Harriet Miers - the president has been uncharacteristically out of step with the American people. Second-term-itis is setting in.

Brooks should have stopped there. He didn’t. He has the answer to the problem. Brooks approach is to bring in fresh blood, which makes sense, but is desirous of more of the same.

Breaking out doesn’t mean bringing in James Baker. It means bringing in like-minded but objective people who haven’t been molded by five years in power, like, say, Vin Weber. It means restoring cabinet government so the president will be surrounded with people more akin to peers. (The White House staff is too emotionally dependent on the president to be brutally honest with him.

I can’t think of a better solution than to bring in a group of people that are fresh, rested, crooks and incompetents. Is Brooks so naive as to think Dick Cheney hasn’t been brutally honest with the president. Get real. Cheney’s been the president for five years, not Bush. That’s a great idea. What country does Brooks want to invade next?

Are Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich the only Times staffers left that are not sufferring from acute atrophy of the cerebrum?