12 Comments

I find Brooks' column always have a linchpin statement presented as a truth universally acknowledge which is in fact a false conservative ideological belief.

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My recollection is that David Brooks was hired as the house conservative by the NYT. This was to combat the claims that the NYT possessed a liberal bias. I don't know if there was specific contractual language to that effect. However, there was surely an implicit understanding of that. Modern actually existing conservatism, of course, bears no resemblance to conservatism as it was when Brooks was hired, or ever. He just got dragged along by the current of crazy that has been unleashed. Yes, intellectual honesty ought to have compelled this admission years ago. However, in my experience intellectual honesty is always in short supply among conservatives.

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Same idiotic NYT editorial page decision model that got us Bill Kristol for what, a year, until the NYT Corrections editor threatened suicide?

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Within that NYT article was a comment from Mr. Stevens re. comparing vice-president choice of Ms. Harris to Ms. Palin. Reminding me of the vast, vast worlds that separate me from even the supposedly rational fringe of "conservatism." When I try to consider what set of assumptions it takes to find K.Harris as disqualifying as S.Palin, I run into a complete failure of my imagination.

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Good catch!

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My comment to Matt: , You need to be more contrarian (especially concerning the need for tax increases for deficit reduction), and more annoying (by insisting to progressives on taxation of net CO2 emissions as the lowest cost way of dealing the climate change), and accept being somewhat less influential (as a result of finally recognizing that the Fed, not Congress and the Executive control employment and inflation).

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Yes, very harmful. I've tried therapy twice; doesn't work.

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Cowen seem to be crediting the Mexica (Aztecs) with the achievements of the whole of Mezzo- American prehistory.

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Cowen is what they call a mile wide and an inch deep. He can be interesting to read because he covers a lot of ground, but he tends to take things at face value and to not look deeply.

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He has been my introduction to a lot of stuff. Any criticism would be vitiated by envy.

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You write so many things so many of us are thinking and haven’t found the words you deliver so immediately and appropriately. This is just the latest gem of insight and perspective. Thank you.

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I screen-grabbed that 6-columns-across atrocity against the truth at the time and use it often. That NYT front page literally LIED, in the sense of blaring something they had no reason to know was true: "NEW Emails Roil Clinton Campaign." Not new, and no reason for them to be at all sure they were. In this sense it was disinformation.

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