With Friends Like These...David Brooks Advocates More Executive Branch Power

The MSM version of “conservative.”

But there is a way out: Make the executive branch more powerful.

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout. It’s important to advocate greater executive branch power in a chastened mood. It’s not that the executive branch is trustworthy; it’s just that we’re better off when the presidency is strong than we are when the rentier groups are strong, or when Congress, which is now completely captured by the rentier groups, is strong.

“You see, kids, the executive branch screwed up because the executive branch isn’t powerful enough.”

It is a hallmark of modern American progressives to scream for more government control every time there is a spectacular failure by that very same government. Brooks’ first example of an “advantage” is that the executive branch could easily come to a “policy conclusion” on something like immigration reform.

Leaving immigration policy in the hands of this current president is not only not something any real conservative would want, it is pretty much a fringe-left notion about how the United States government should be run.

Noah Rothman at Mediaite has an excellent takedown of Brooks and the Times‘ version of “conservative.”

With this latest thought-burp, Brooks seems to be going the full David Brock route. The sooner he admits he’s finally been assimilated by the Prog Borg, the better.