David Brooks: “I’m an Obama sap.”
Well, we knew that, David — but do you have anything new to tell us?
As it turns out, yes. Brooks would like to tell us it isn’t his fault he’s a rube. It’s not Bush’s fault (I don’t think). It’s not even Obama’s fault. It’s — wait for it, because this is really clever stuff here — it’s Washington’s fault! Oh, yes, it is. Behold the excuse-mongering:
Yes, I’m a sap. I believed Obama when he said he wanted to move beyond the stale ideological debates that have paralyzed this country. I always believe that Obama is on the verge of breaking out of the conventional categories and embracing one of the many bipartisan reform packages that are floating around.
But remember, I’m a sap. The White House has clearly decided that in a town of intransigent Republicans and mean ideologues, it has to be mean and intransigent too. The president was stung by the liberal charge that he was outmaneuvered during the debt-ceiling fight. So the White House has moved away from the Reasonable Man approach or the centrist Clinton approach. [Emphasis added, buy why?]
Barack Obama lost the nice crease in his trousers, only because our nation’s capital is full of wrinkly, mean old men. It’s not the President’s fault. And so it certainly isn’t Brooks’s fault for being a sap — because deep inside, far below the cut of his jib, Obama hasn’t changed of whit. He’s still the pragmatic technocratic centrist he always campaigned as.
Shorter Brooks: “Please just love me like I love you, Barack. I forgive you — come back!”
This is an unseemly column, where Brooks attempts to prove he’s not really sap, by declaring his unending sapitude. But the truth is, “Obamaism” was never anything more than a campaign ploy to earn the trust of people like Brooks and Peggy Noonan and Chris Buckley and countless others who should have known better.
Noonan has manned up. Buckley has too, sort of. Brooks, however, still sounds like a Shirelles song every time his man comes around. He’d sound more manly if he’d change his tune to that of a woman scorned.
Great piece Steve
The last line is priceless!
There there David, take it easy. You should go do what you always do when men betray you; just go take a long shower, put on your robe, crack open a tube of cookie dough and watch your Blue Ray Directors Cut of “The Thorn Birds”.
Our Miss Brooks? (Eve Arden was funnier)
Unforgiven.
So, why didn’t we see this transformative Obama the first two years he had Washington all to himself and his Dems? (I told my kids during those two years that every Republican in Congress could go sit on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and blow bubbles, for all the difference they could make in what was going on).
Isn’t it amazing that Democrats and their apologists don’t remember a) The two years that Obama and the Dems had free run of the entire government, with the possible exception of the Supreme Court; and b) for the last two years of *Bush’s* Presidency, Obama and the Dems were in charge of Congress!
I’ve never understood how the heck someone could “inherit” an economy they *voted* *for*. But, I guess that’s the only way the Democrats follow anything the Bible says: “let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth”.
Shhh! Remember, one must maintain the narrative. It’s all Dubya’s fault.
Then again, if -like you- I insisted on remaining planted in the real world, I would also point out that every single president ever elected has inherited unfavorable situations from their predecessor. Difference is, the first 43 didn’t whinge about it.
So Miss Brooksie is admitting that she’s foolish and we should pay no attention to her? Consider it done.
And how did she ever get labelled “conservative”?
Exactly what I want to know, RBJ. My guess is that the liberal media labeled him a conservative so they could pretend to have balance on their panel discussions. I’ve never heard anything come out of his mouth that didn’t sound left of center. Of course, like most (all?) liberals, he thinks he is a moderate.
All this “I’m a sap” rhetoric is just him making excuses for being so slow to jump on the Obama-is-a-disappointment bandwagon.
Never mind The Shirelles, This puppy-love crush sounds like something the Cardigans would produce!
“Foolish little girl” is exactly right. “I’m a sap” equals “But he apologizes and cries after he hits me, so I can’t help but take him back; I know it’s dumb, but I love him anyway.”
As a woman I can’t understand a man writing this “I’m a sap” column in a major newspaper. Wouldn’t his male friends mock him? I would think he would feel ashamed of his mawkishness.
Brooks was beguiled by the creases in Obama’s trousers. He still can’t quite fathom that Obama only pants to spend like Croesus.
We should award him the Sansa Stark award. He is one of the people I ritually never pay attention to, because of his manifest lunk-headedness.
I, for one, read the column with great relief. It was good to hear that Mr. Brooks has been released from whatever cave he has been in since mid-2008 and is once again exposed to the real world. Most people who were fooled came to the same conclusion at least a year ago.
They rolled up all thier hopes and dreams and packaged Obama. Obama is of thier own making. It was after all thier own love affair that got him elected in the first place. Finally all of thier desires would be realized in the Spock like demeanor of Obama.
Today, after just three years, we have all reaped the seeds sown at that time. It isn’t Bush’s fault and to a degree it isn’t Obama’s fault but it is what happens when you place your faith in a man instead of an ides. Man will wlays disapoint. Man is imperfect and therefore incapable of worship.
Pedestals are tricky things when you put someone up on one they will always fall off. Pedestals are narrow and tall and if you vary just a little left or right of its’ narrow confines it will fall taking the occupant of said pedestal with them.
In a very real way it is the fault of the very people who worshipped this man-child by placing him on that pedestal. We usually reserve pedestals to those who are dead, it is hard for dead people to shift the center of gravity.
So, dear Mr. Brooks, it is your fault and all those that thought like you.
Well said.
I don’t understand why anyone still bothers with what this man thinks at all. One can read George Will or Charles Krauthammer or any number of other folks and disagree with what they say, but at the very least their arguments are logical, coherent and realistic. Anybody who says something like “I was impressed with the crease in his pants” is an obvious fool and his drivel is not worth wasting the time it takes to read it. He really didn’t have to tell me he’s a sap, I knew it long before he did.