POLITICS: Babbling Brooks

Don't get me wrong, I hate New York Times columnist David Brooks and his unapologetic shilling for the Bush administration just as much as the next guy, but check out this response Brooks gave to a question during his appearance on the Imus In The Morning show today. As per usual, Imus lulled his guest into a comfort zone free of agenda and schtick long enough to speak freely:

Imus: "Donald Rumsfeld yesterday said that things are better in Iraq than is being portrayed by the media, and I don't know what that means because we talk to people everyday and they are part of the media, but, and it's not my job to defend them, but I, some of the reporters we talk to actually I think are fairly legitimate and don't have an agenda. They work for neither CBS nor CNN, ha, ha and it doesn't appear to be that way. But I don't know, what's your view, is he right or partly right?"

David Brooks: "He may be partly right, but if Rumsfeld hadn't been saying the same damn thing for four years he'd have a little more credibility saying it now. If just once he said 'Hey, this is really bad, here, here's why it's really bad but we're going to work through it', he'd have a lot more credibility. One of the things I, you know, if you've got 15 minutes, go to the internet, look up the FDR fireside chats during World War II in '42 and '43, he had one in '42, I think in February, and he told Americans, hey, lay out a map. Here's the Pacific, here's this island, we're losing there. Here's that island, we're actually doing ok there. Here's this island we haven't lost there, but we probably will. Here's the plane we're going to use. Here's the advantages of this plane and here's the disadvantages of this plane. Here's another weapon we have, here's the advantages, here's the disadvantages. It was like he was talking to you like you were an adult and you're going to stick this thing through and they were just better speeches than anything Bush has given. So you know, those speeches were fantastic because he treated people like adults and he was pretty honest and granted he had a united country. But you know, it's just a model of how to talk to people during a war."

Talking to us like adults so we can then have an honest dialogue---what a concept. Now isn't that exactly what I heard Barack Obama calling for in a speech a couple of weeks ago, as well as many on the left echoing the same sentiments since? Of course we'll never be treated with anything close to such simple respect from Bush & Cheney & crew, even when the likes of strident supporters such as Brooks are calling for it.