I have two reactions to the latest Mel-gate. The first is that I couldn’t give a hoot about Mr. Gibson, a mega-celebrity who has clearly lost control of his life. The second is: There but for the grace of God go we.
I don’t mean that we all harbor barely suppressed racism, Read More
7/4/10 In this moment of national and personal crisis, I have resolved to record my final thoughts of each day in the hopes of drawing strength from a purer form of expression. I wonder if Malcolm Gladwell does anything like this?
7/5 Profile of me out in New York magazine today, generally Read More
Chris Beam profiled New York Times columnist David Brooks for New York this week, and Mr. Brooks comes out looking like the Eeyore of The Times Opinion lineup (“Murderer’s Row”).
“Every column is a failure. I always wish I did something different,” Mr. Brooks told Mr. Beam, whose father Alex Beam Read More
The decision to replace General Stanley McChrystal following his inflammatory remarks to Rolling Stone seems to have been generally well received, but in the grand conservative tradition one man stands at those tides and says, “halt.” That man is David Brooks.
To give Brooks the benefit of the doubt, Read More
One of the odd things about Wall Street right now, among many, is that it is exactly the same as it’s always been. Nearly everyone agrees that it needs drastic change, but few people know exactly what that change should look like, and even less can write eloquently about how and why that Read More
Pardon me for not getting too worked up about the Stunning Decline In Barack Obama’s Poll Numbers.
Yes, the president’s approval rating, which was roughly on par with that of the microwave oven when he first took office, has fallen to around 50 percent. And this makes it possible for pundits Read More
The Arts section of Wednesday’s New York Times carried an ad from Vintage Books for the new paperback edition of Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. Across the top was a banner printed in comical all-caps: “THE NOVEL THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA IS NOW READING.”
Earlier this month, Vintage had bumped up the release date of the Read More
On the evening of Monday, January 19th, the publisher David Bradley, stood in the opulent living room of his Georgian mansion off of Embassy Row in Washington D.C., across the road from the Naval Observatory, and spoke of existential angst.
"All of us have those middle of the night sentiments of, ‘Does any of Read More
Hey, look who’s back! America’s old friend, Patio Man. In his New York Times column today, David Brooks offers "Patio Man Revisited," a little check-in with his archetypal (white) suburban everyman whom he introduced to readers in a 2002 two-part story in The Weekly Standard.
Back then—when President Bush’s Read More
It is encouraging to see more and more honest conservatives asking themselves hard questions about the candidacy of Sarah Palin and its dumbing down of their party and movement. Some are more honest than others, of course. Clearly David Brooks understands why Palin could be a “fatal cancer” for the Republican Party, but Read More
