Well, Brooks has gone and done me in.
David Brooks says that there are two visions in the country, one held by liberals and Barack Obama and one held by conservatives and Mitt Romney. Brooks does Obama the service of actually waving in the direction of what he actually thinks. He then does Obama the disservice of inventing a position for the other side. I don’t exaggerate; this is an act of pure creation. He cites nothing, or nothing verifiable; he refers only to “Republicans he speaks to,” as instrumentalized and anthropological a creation as Thomas Friedman’s third world taxi drivers. In fact, in an act of almost impossible ballsiness, he admits that the alternative that he’s projecting onto Romney is not one he’s articulated. No, Romney’s regard for this worldview that he hasn’t articulated is shown because “this worldview is implied in his (extremely vague) proposals.”
Well: accusations of hypocrisy aren’t much, when we’re talking about the future of our country. But for Brooks to accuse Romney of being vague in this piece is just too much. Because what Brooks articulates for a Republican philosophy– and let’s be clear, we’re talking about the course of our country, the well-being of millions of people, and the creation or prevention of enormous suffering– what Brooks lays out is utterly empty. There’s nothing there.Â