Pro Ecclesia * Pro Familia * Pro Civitate: David Brooks Throws a Tantrum

David Brooks took to the pages of The New York Times yesterday to throw a great big temper tantrum over the fact that his elitist, pseudo-sophisticated notions don't hold sway with the conservative grassroots of the GOP and that the RINO party elders just don't have the wherewithal to take back his precious party from the riff-raff:

... But, of course, this is exactly what has been happening in the Republican Party for the past half century. Over these decades, one pattern has been constant: Wingers [ED.: Really? "Wingers"? I thought you were too sophisticated and too "no labels" to engage in such rhetoric. Hypocrite.] fight to take over the party, mainstream Republicans bob and weave to keep their seats.

Republicans on the extreme ferociously attack their fellow party members. Those in the middle backpedal to avoid conflict. Republicans on the extreme are willing to lose elections in order to promote their principles. Those in the mainstream are quick to fudge their principles if it will help them get a short-term win.

[...]

All across the nation, there are mainstream Republicans lamenting how the party has grown more and more insular, more and more rigid. This year, they have an excellent chance to defeat President Obama, yet the wingers have trashed the party’s reputation by swinging from one embarrassing and unelectable option to the next: Bachmann, Trump, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum. [ED.: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait a minute, @$$hole. You were singing Santorum's praises back when Gingrich was challenging your boy and Santorum was considered the "principled alternative" who you were hoping would steal votes away from Gingrich. Now he's "embarrassing and unelectable"? Do you think we're so stupid that we can't remember what you wrote just last month? Talk about "embarrassing", the way you Romneybots have all followed the EXACT SAME template of praising Santorum when you believed he had no real chance of beating Romney to trashing him now that he poses the most serious challenge to Dullard's election hopes, is laughably embarrassing.]

But where have these party leaders been over the past five years, when all the forces that distort the G.O.P. were metastasizing? Where were they during the rise of Sarah Palin [ED.: How about backstabbing her with whisper campaigns and feeding "background info" to fellow traveling columnists like you only too willing to dish dirt, trash reputations, and abandon the candidate YOU supported ALL ALONG going back to the 2000 election just because he picked someone from the "riff-raff" to be his running mate?] and Glenn Beck? Where were they when Arizona passed its beyond-the-fringe immigration law? Where were they in the summer of 2011 when the House Republicans rejected even the possibility of budget compromise? [ED.: The question is: Where were YOU? Wherever it was, it was obviously someplace where you were unable to pay attention to the actual facts of what actually happened. Because it's pretty clear to everyone else that it was the GOP who compromised their principles on the budget and got absolutely NOTHING in return.] They were lying low, hoping the unpleasantness would pass.

The wingers call their Republican opponents RINOs, or Republican In Name Only. But that’s an insult to the rhino, which is a tough, noble beast. If RINOs were like rhinos, they’d stand up to those who seek to destroy them. Actually, what the country needs is some real Rhino Republicans. But the professional Republicans never do that. [ED.: Bullshit. Ask anyone who has dared to pose a challenge to Dullard Flip Rino during this election season whether the "professional Republicans" fight back and fight dirty. Ask the Tea Party candidates who defeated the Establishment-anointed candidates during the 2010 election cycle whether the "professional Republicans" fight back and fight dirty, even showing a willingness to lose elections on principle - just like you accuse the "purists" of doing - rather than be shown up by the upstart riff-raff.] They’re not rhinos. They’re Opossum Republicans. They tremble for a few seconds then slip into an involuntary coma every time they’re challenged aggressively from the right. [ED. Whatever. Crybaby.]

Without real opposition, the wingers go from strength to strength. Under their influence, we’ve had a primary campaign that isn’t really an argument about issues. It’s a series of heresy trials in which each of the candidates accuse the others of tribal impurity. Two kinds of candidates emerge from this process: first, those who are forceful but outside the mainstream; second, those who started out mainstream but look weak and unprincipled because they have spent so much time genuflecting before those who despise them. [ED.: Oh the humanity! Dullard Flip Rino has actually had to act like he really gives a rip about conservative principles in order to try to convince REPUBLICAN voters to award him the REPUBLICAN nomination. He should've just been anointed on the basis of ... wait a minute ... I'm sure I can come up with a compelling argument for his nomination if you give me another 7 years of his running for President.]

[...]

Leaders of a party are supposed to educate the party, to police against its worst indulgences, to guard against insular information loops. They’re supposed to define a creed and establish boundaries. [ED.: In other words, the Establishment RINO minority should call the shots, and the conservative majority in the grassroots (i.e. the "riff-raff") should shut up, respect its "elders", send in money, and march in lockstep to the voting booth to do the bidding of our betters in the "educated class".] Republican leaders haven’t done that. Now the old pious cliché applies:

First they went after the Rockefeller Republicans, but I was not a Rockefeller Republican. Then they went after the compassionate conservatives, but I was not a compassionate conservative. Then they went after the mainstream conservatives, and there was no one left to speak for me. [ED.: Oh, good grief. Get over yourself!]

(emphasis and editorial commentary added)

My Comments:
Leaving aside one of the more pathetic invocations of Godwin's Law that I have ever had the misfortune of reading, I don't know what's more sad: (a) that Brooks actually wrote this whiny piece of drivel; or (b) that the man who voted for Obama in 2008 based, at least in part, on an admiration for Obama's pant crease, actually believes himself to be a "mainstream conservative".

Mickey Kaus, one of a dwindling number of principled Democrats out there, does a fine job of taking Brooks apart for this little diatribe.

David Brooks’ Sad Elite: David Brooks says extremist “wingers” have taken over the Republican party–because those condemned as RINOs are too timid to “stand up to those who would destroy them.”

(1) It sounds like he’s not really upset with RINOs. He’s upset with primaries.

(2) [...]

(3) [...]

(4) Is this the inverted country club Republican version of the Dems Fight-Back Fallacy? ‘If only those RINOs had some spine and fighting spirit they’d beat those irresponsible wingers.’ No they wouldn’t.

(5) Brooks thinks he’s a “mainstream conservative”? If so, he is an “insular information loop” of one.