Joe Klein seems to get it:
David Brooks writes today as a moderate-conservative anguished by Barack Obama’s budget. I’ve known David for almost twenty years now. We’ve had many wonderful conversations, publicly and privately, over those years, and I value the quality of his mind, his decency, his essential sanity. We both consider ourselves moderates, though of different sorts.
But I disagree with him profoundly about the Obama budget–and so, I would venture, do most moderate-liberals. The budget has to be seen in context. We are at the end of a 30-year period of radical conservatism, a period so right-wing that many of those now considered “liberals”–like, say, Barack Obama–would be seen as moderate pantywaists in the great sweep of modern political history. The past 30 years have been such a violent departure from the norm, such a profound destruction of the basic functions of government, that a major rectification is called for now–in rebalancing the system of taxation toward progressivity, in rebuilding the infrastructure of the country, not just physically, but also socially and intellectually.
I’m really not kidding when I say that Obama would probably be viewed as almost too “conservative” in many regards for some of the center-right parties of Europe. Unless things have changed radically since my comparative politics courses, Obama would probably be in the right wing of a party like the CDU/CSU in Germany. Or, at least the CDU/CSU as it was discussed back when I was taking these courses years and years ago, although I would bet they are still roughly the same. Obama is most certainly to the right of what used to be call the Free Democrats or the Social Democrats. And I am surprised I still remember this stuff almost 20 years later. Good teacher, I guess. Unless, of course, everything I have stated here is wrong, in which case, blame me and not my old prof. I was probably staring at the cute girl two seats over instead of paying attention.
The Moar You Know
He – and more importantly, you, John, are correct. There is no real "left" worthy of the term in America. Obama, by any sane measure, is a moderate conservative.
gwangung
Under the watch of conservatism, the nation’s infrastructure just went to pot. No ifs, ands, or buts about that.
Any cries about Obama being too liberal had better get a solution about that infractructure before they spend one second complaining.
"INFRASTRUCTURE, bitches!"
Catsy
This is extremely important to keep in context. The only reason Obama appears so liberal is because the GOP has succeeded in moving the Overton window so far to the right over the last few decades.
The ironic thing about this is that it cuts both liberals and conservatives in different ways. Liberals hoping for a hard left-wing president are disappointed when they find that all that pragmatic centrism wasn’t just a schtick Obama used to get elected, it’s actually how he governs. Conservatives are finding that people just aren’t buying the socialist boogeyman red-baiting anymore.
Catsy
John, when your spam filter is so fucking stupid that it can’t tell the difference between an erectile dysfunction drug and an electile dysfunction slur, it’s time to get a new spam filter.
Lev
Gore Vidal described our politicians as evenly split between conservatives and reactionaries. True as it ever was.
aimai
Village politics. Brooks is a "moderate of a different sort?" Fuck that. He’s no moderate, or rather he’s moderate in the way the dog you hire to attack the plebes is moderate compared to the gun toting soldiers. Brooks is simply the polite mouthpiece of the kleptocratic state that Reagan bequeathed us. That being said, Klein is right that Obama is the actual moderate in the room. Hell, he waited until he was elected in a landslide to seize power–that’s damned moderate in my book. And even now his revolutionary acts consist mainly of repealing the worst excesses of the reagan/bush years. He’s bumping up the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest by, what, two or three percent? He’s proposing maybe to start trying to make sure the uninsured gain access to some kind of health insurance. Wake up up and get me the smelling salts when he personally orders Bernie Madoff and the AIG guys into the torture box at Gitmo and also guarantees us full nationalized health care paid for by the remnants of Sheldon Adelson’s personal pocketbook.
aimai
Screamin' Demon
See, this is where the ability to multitask comes in handy. I could stare at the cute blonde next to me and take notes at the same time. But then I could also score a 97 on the final exam in the same class — without studying beforehand, and with a hangover that would kill a horse.
But I was 21 then, with a cast iron liver.
Rick Taylor
I asked this towards the end of another thread, but did David Brooks support the Bush tax cuts? I’ve been googling, but there are so many matches to Brooks and Bush Tax cuts I haven’t been able to find out. I’d appreciate if anyone has an article by him that would give the answer one way or the other.
Rick Taylor
These past years, the term "liberal" in my mind has morphed into a synonym for "someone moderately well informed and not bat-shit insane."
Shane
In all fairness, doesn’t this mean we’re a center-right nation? If Obama is in line with some of the center-right European parties, yet 30% (give or take) of the US screams about him being a socialist, isn’t that the logical conclusion?
Napoleon
Ed Kilgore’s take on Brook’s column is pretty good also.
Gregory
Of course — if there’s a major rebuilding of the intellectual infrastructure, people will be more able to figure out Brooks’ schtick and, more importantly, he looks less smart by comparison. No wonder he’s opposed.
Martin
One other thing about the budget – it’s a very different approach from any time in my lifetime.
It’s far more honest than we’ve seen in a long time. Perhaps it could be more honest, I don’t know, but compared to just a year ago, it’s radically different in presentation. And if you look at the spending options, about half of the projected deficit is actually in reserved spending – that is, we want permission to spend, but we don’t know if we will actually do it and we don’t want to come back in a year and ask for an emergency bill for something that we can reasonably anticipate today. That’s HUGELY different. If you take out that spending, the budget doesn’t look all that much worse than the last Bush budget proposal. Now, I’m no so dumb as to think that the reserved spending won’t get spent, I’m sure it will, but comparing it to any other budget in recent history is an apples-oranges comparison.
I’d really like to see every budget proposal since Reagan reworked using these guidelines with the deficit spending request adjusted for GDP to see just where it falls in line historically. I’m sure it’s worse, because the situation is worse, but I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as everyone is making it out to be.
MattF
Another piece of the context, which Klein doesn’t mention, is that Brooks has been an enabler for the "radical conservatism" that has so damaged this country. Brooks has been the reasonable, amusing fellow-traveler who helped lead the country down the garden path. For Brooks to now advocate ‘moderation’ and suggest that what happened in the past eight years is just bygones– it’s just not good enough, to put it as mildly as possible.
Martin
You’re doing it wrong. You pay attention, find a way to distract the cute girl two seats over, and then offer to come over to her place to help her study because she wasn’t paying attention.
I scored three cheerleaders in HS by helping them through AP courses.
Napoleon
@MattF:
Would I technically trigger Goodwin’s Law if I said Brooks is the Albert Speer of the Republican Party, by lending an air of respectability to them?
Comrade Dread
Yep.
Thing is, I think a lot of ‘liberals’ would have qualified as conservatives years ago.
I want a responsible smart government which is constrained by law, checks and balances, and the Constitution. I would preferably like one as small as possible, but large enough to handle its necessary functions well.
I would like the government at all levels to be adamant about respecting the rights of its citizens.
I would like a government that is aware of human frailty and limits and doesn’t adhere to "We’re the greatest in the world and we can do anything" idealistic policy goals.
I would like a government that internationally abides by the idea that principles and laws apply to all countries equally regardless of how well we like a given country. And one that doesn’t believe in preventative wars.
And I would like a government that is fiscally responsible in the truest sense of the word, running zero deficits in good economic times and paying off a large portion of our debt as soon as we are able to.
whinger
I always wondered about that, just because it’s such an obvious, visible thing. You’ve got bridges collapsing and potholes that eat your car and cops saying that they can’t be expected to respond to every little call they get and schools with no heat and shit, yeah?
Why did we go so long without anyone saying "Hey, wait a minute, stuff’s getting all Third World?" (Well, I mean, I’ve been saying that, but I don’t know if I count.)
There keep being news stories that sound like stuff from dystopian sf novels, and people keep not freaking out about it, and I never got it. Pregnant women shouldn’t eat tuna cause of the mercury? Houston gets so smoggy that some days, the weatherman says "Uh, old people shouldn’t go outside today?"
Was anyone planning to get scared at any point?
Indylib
I can’t say that I don’t wish Obama was more progressive, I do.
But I do understand that we can’t lead the American dunderhead electorate significantly further to the left in one fell swoop. We’ve got to lead the debate out of Wingnuttia one step at a time, overcoming years of framing by the Republicons.
timb
Rick Taylor form #9 above is the winner of the :"best post of the day" award (given by me at my discretion and totally ignored by everyone else). Well-said, Rick
Michael
I caught the 1984 "Morning in America" commercial again on Scarborough this AM.
First time I’ve seen it in 25 years, and it really looks like cheesy manipulation. Flags, green lawns, white picket fences, the Capitol, more flags, some happy old white people and kids.
It embarrassed me to think I fell for the hype.
bruce
The CDU/CSU is itself a coalition party, so there are definitely leaders in it that are far to the right of Obama generally speaking. That said, for many reasons, cultural and historic, Obama is imo definitely "of the left" and would be far more confortable in the SPD.
timb
The other weird thing I noted from the Brooks column was Brooks’s judgment that the budget was
Leaving aside the odd assertion that a budget is a corpeal thing which can be promiscuously unwilling (I think I dated that girl….several times), why the hell would the submitted be full of concessions and trade-offs, David? Maybe you don’t know anything about negotiating, but typically one stakes out an extreme position at first and THEN negotiates concessions and trade-offs. It’s not exactly a good strategy to open with "look, we’d like a ton of things, but I bet you won’t give them to us, so hows about I settle on 10 cents on the dollar?"
Is the best Brooks can do? Obama didn’t negotiate against himself prior to submitting the budget, thus he’s scary?
It just makes no sense.
ricky
Michael @21
For point of reference, the youngest voters who fell for"Morning In America" are 42, and if they had been putting their savings in the market are about 55% poorer than they were the last time they fell for Bush II.
Cheesy? I’d say some are ready for some of that surplus cheese Reagan handed out to ppor folks in the ’80’s.
Robin G.
I’m not feeling too inclined to pat Klein on the back for saying the truth. The truth would have been a lot more useful at avoiding this whole trainwreck back in, oh, 2003 or 2004.
El Cid
The times make for odd revelations. I’m surprised, but impressed, that Joe Klein has begun — apparently — to get it.
Bush Jr. was the Ronald Reagan that the radical rightists wanted Reagan to be.
If Ronald Reagan had had absolute power over all branches of government, maybe, maybe he would have gone as far over the deep end as quickly as Reagan II (Bush Jr.). But it’s hard to say.
Indylib
@ricky:
Not quite yet, I’m not. OK, I will be by the time election month rolls around again. But I’m only 41 I tell you – only 41!
Englischlehrer
I’ve lived in Germany for 6 years and I’ll tell you that Obama is probably right of the CDU but left of the CSU. The difference between those, however, is probably between Blue Dogs and the 3 Repubs who voted for the stimulus…
Mike in NC
What was Joe’s point? I don’t watch him. Is he just being nostalgic for "The Shining City on a Hill" garbage? We’re finally seeing the fruits of Reaganism and it ain’t pretty.
ricky
Indylib, I admit I shaved off some time there. Enough time for Bobby Jindal to stick his head into Sheriff Lee’s office before the two of them swam across Lake Ponchatrain on the back of the Tiger and saved drowning people from bureaucrats (or was it saved people from drowning in bureaucrats.)
gwangung
Because we have frickin’ morons on government who are afraid to raise taxes to fix what needs to be fix and we have frickin’ morons who freak out at higher taxes even while they’re complaining about falling bridges, decaying roads and rotten schools.
This needs to be repeated over and over and over again:
Wanna change that? Well, our taxes and governance is gonna have to change….
Rick Taylor
@whinger:
9/11 and then the war with Iraq was a big distraction. After Enron, I wondered we’d begin to seriously address the rather shocking failings of a financial system that could give high ratings to a house of cards. Then 9/11 happened, and that was pretty much forgotten.
Das Internetkommissariat
As a native German/Austrian I agree with Englischlehrer. He is right of the CDU but left of the CSU. But come on, the CSU is batshit crazy. The FDP does not count, they are mostly extremely pro-business. That however, has to be seen in the context of a German bueraucracy which regulates EVERYTHING with an iron fist.
Did you know that they have an agency which is called something like "agency for order" (Ordnungsamt)? And yes, it is exactly that kind of German ORRDRR!! These guys patrol around cities and are entitled to check IDs and write fines for e.g. putting some baskets with merchandise outside your shop without permit (100-200bucks, because you are obstructing the pavement). Or feeding pigeons in the park (40 bucks). And so on.
Jay B.
This kind of thing is meaningless. You can’t directly compare European political taxonomies with American ones. Sure, there’s a CDU and a Social Democratic Party, there are also Greens and "People’s Parties" which skew to the nativist right. The moderates in the European spectrum are generally the ones who make up the ruling governments. The same is basically true in the US. Bush, who governed as a radical authoritarian, campaigned as a "moderate", which would lead one to believe that’s what people voted for.
In the American tradition, Obama is liberal in so far as even that is useful for description. He’s far more progressive than Clinton and Kennedy. His current model seems to be FD Roosevelt, and there’s some TR-style reformism in there too — without the imperialist baggage. So, it seems to me, Obama is in NO WAY, sane or otherwise, a "moderate conservative".
That may describe his temperament, but certainly not his politics.
Comrade Stuck
Yes, it was. It allowed Bush to do what wingnuts have always done when they get in power, begin to shift the wealth in this country to their already wealthy friends. If you go back even to Nixon and after, while the GOoppers are in office the gap between rich and poor pretty much always widens. Then dems get in power and begin to reverse that trend. It kind of makes for a semblance of equilibrium, though the dereg movement accelerated under Reagan gave the wanna-be Oligarchs a leg up in the eternal tug of war. Then the repeal of the GD era Steagal Act allowed banks and Wall Street to work together, followed by P Grahams legislation threw the gates wide open for greed and abuse. And too many dems, including Clinton looked the other way, and a few even helped the repubs pull it off.
Comes along GWB and 9-11, which distracted the country into allowing the Bushies to stop regulating with the few tools left to stop, or slow down, the heist. And here we sit today. I think Obama is trying to fix this with some big balled efforts, and hence the wingnuts screaming the S word and cleaning their guns. Somebody oughta write a book, and I’m sure they will.
Waingro
Yes, that’s too mild. Fuck that guy with a broomstick.
Brooks really is just a slippery, mendacious little asshole. I can’t stand these equivocating careerists douchebags (cough, David Frum). We all have memories and we remember that people like David Brooks, David Frums and spent the bulk of their adult life helping make the world a worse place. They should have the balls to own their work.
Michael
Here’s an interesting thought on the "Country First" meme.
After 9-11, Democrats in Congress abandoned all opposition to anything, and gave Bush a clear road.
This was in keeping with the WWII (forward) tradition of allowing the President wide latitude in a time of crisis. They allowed him his budgets, they gave him the benefit of the doubt on sought powers, they gave him his appointees (particularly at Justice, State. FEMA, Defense) without question. They assumed that he was behaving as a prudent Chief Executive on these things.
And they got screwed for it. Incompetents got hired, powers got misused and exceeded, gross mistakes made – and when questions arose, the questioners got vilified.
Now, Republicans in the opposition have an opportunity to put Country First, and what do they do?
ricky
Wouldn’t it be easier to hire the NYPD? They have experience.
ricky
They were nothing compared to the Obama plan to reduce the effective rate of tax deductible charitable donations according to Glenn Beck. He calls that "Enslavement."
Michael
It makes me happy to see that deduction go down. We’ve not been getting a good "bang for the buck", particularly on money going to religious institutions.
Thinking that they were a worthy part of the safety net has been a mistake.
gex
@gwangung:
Wrong. It’s because we have gated communities with private law enforcement, fire protection, and emergency services who have neighboorhood associations fixing everything up around them. It’s not their problem that most Americans can’t use the marketplace to replace normal government functions.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Because for the past 30 years any politician who had the courage to even suggest the government should raise more revenue to improve things like schools, roads, and bridges was immediately tarred as a "tax and spend liberal" by the right-wing propaganda machine.
georgia pig
@timb:
Also, notice how Brooks implicitly expects you to accept his Villager bullshit definition of "tradeoffs." Put it this way: Obama is accepting a tradeoff, i.e., that Commander Codpiece and his Lost Planet Airmen fucked everything up so badly that he has to accept the tradeoff of an increased budget deficit and higher taxes on the wealthy in return for preventing the country from imploding. These fucking assholes always treat this kind of stuff as an economics problem when it’s them, but a moral problem when it’s someone else. How ’bout Brooksie and the other HCE’s (highly compensated employees) accepting a fucking "tradeoff" for a change, for the good of the country? No, they’re all going to try to earn $249,999.99 because their precious incentives are threatened.
Rick Taylor
@timb:
Thank you. ^^
Chuck Butcher
F***ing house on a f***ing shit pile, maybe I qualified as left in the 60s & 70s but all those comercials incited me to was ripping a flag out and stuffing it up…
Ok, maybe this isn’t quite the time to foam at the mouth…
I have no idea what Pres Obama thinks privately and I’m entirely unsure that the political face is the private face but political reality dictates some things. Ya know, in that time period I was furious about corporate power, the power of wealth, the existence of intitutionalized poverty (hey W VA) and the concentration of power in the hands of the few. Rather than stroke out…
Pitchforks and torches anyone?
Les Miserable Fulcanelli
@Chuck Butcher:
I’m in, I’ll be ready just as soon as I find my old Reagan era "Question Authority" button with the little map of El Salvador on it…
les
@timb:
This is what Brooks always does, this is why Brooks is a sleazy compromising loser (if you want to pretend he’s a moderate–which I don’t; he’s a fucking villager, enabling the cocktail party throwers and the fucksticks destroying our government). His line is always, "if you’re really moderates you won’t make the repubs yell at you, just take what they give and we can be happy." He’s an out of touch poseur, a fantasy, a flaming bag of poop passing himself off as a gift. I don’t like him.
Anastasius
It’s hard placing Obama somewhere on the European political spectrum cause on the one hand is fighting for health care and labor rights, leftist issues that most European countries did decades ago and are mostly off the radar now and then there are his war and legal positions where he can hang with the nuttiest the CSU has to offer.
But ya, overall the CDU/CSU has a bottle of Viagra strength boner for every piece of executive policy coming from the US and Obama would fit right in.
Comrade grumpy realist
I always tell those screaming about "progressive taxation!" to think of it as insurance against a revolution and getting hanged from the lampposts.
Get enough of a wealth disparity in your society, you get a revolution. Look at history. Happens every time….and the Usual Suspects pop their heads up dazedly over the wreckage afterwards (if said heads are not on pikes) and whine "hoocodeanode?!"
Best insurance against the Aux Barricades types is a large, happy, and placid middle class. Amazing how the Upper Crust never learns, tries to grab more and more, and then suddenly it’s the ex-middle-class and the poor against the Upper Crust. Guess who wins? Right….
Steeplejack
@Martin:
I think you may be right about that. I have been lazily wanting someone (not me) to go back and redo the sheet-spreading on the budgets for, say, the Clinton and G.W. Bush years so one could do an apples-to-apples comparison with Obama’s budget. Just getting the war spending for Afghanistan and Iraq officially on the books would be mind-blowing, I think.
Steeplejack
@Comrade Dread:
Hell, yes. I started out (politically) as a somewhat fiscally conservative, socially liberal middle-of-the-road type back in the ’70s (this is all neatly categorized in retrospect, of course–at the time it was much vaguer and more amorphous), but the country, or at least the political discourse, has swerved so far to the right in the last 30 years that half the time over the last 10-15 years I felt like some weird, crazy Shining Path Maoist–without having changed my views that much, aside from getting (I hope) a little smarter as the years have passed.
President Obama (God, I love saying that), for all his center-tude-ness, feels like a huge gust of fresh air being let back in the room.