VIDEO- David Brooks: Sarah Palin is "a joke"

By GottaLaff

David Brooks:

"Republican primary voters are just not going to elect a talk show host."

Not after the stratospheric success they had with Me and the Chimp. Too bad the now-canceled 2001-2008 series wasn't more like Lockup.

Video- David Brooks: "Loons" Beck, Limbaugh, Levin "don't control" GOP

Oh oh, guess who's going to be next on their hit list... Followed closely by Lindsay.

Added- Looks like Carville wants a seat in that boat too.

David Brooks: "In the media world, [Rush] is a giant. In the real world, he’s not.

By GottaLaff

David Brooks smacks down the Trio of Stupid and their enablers. Even a stopped clock....

Over the years, I have asked many politicians what happens when Limbaugh and his colleagues attack. The story is always the same. Hundreds of calls come in. The receptionists are miserable. But the numbers back home do not move. There is no effect on the favorability rating or the re-election prospects. In the media world, he is a giant. In the real world, he’s not.

But this is not merely a story of weakness. It is a story of resilience. For no matter how often their hollowness is exposed, the jocks still reweave the myth of their own power. They still ride the airwaves claiming to speak for millions. They still confuse listeners with voters. And they are aided in this endeavor by their enablers. They are enabled by cynical Democrats, who love to claim that Rush Limbaugh controls the G.O.P. They are enabled by lazy pundits who find it easier to argue with showmen than with people whose opinions are based on knowledge. They are enabled by the slightly educated snobs who believe that Glenn Beck really is the voice of Middle America.

So the myth returns. Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

Couple all that up with the reality that Rushpublics don't have logic, ideas, or feasible solutions on their side. Americans are realizing that the Party of No is not healthy for the country, for families, or for individuals.

Rushpublics are always telling us to do the math. Okey dokey then:

Deranged punditiots/worthless Republican party "leaders" + sick platform = fatal for America. That's quite an equation.

H/t: DAKGirl

VIDEO- David Brooks: A Republican senator put ‘his hand on my inner thigh’ for a ‘whole’ dinner party

By GottaLaff

Ew Factor: Over the top...



Maybe it's because Brooks is just too attractive to resist.

I did NOT just say that.

David Brooks opines on Bobby Jindal's calamitous response to Obama speech

Oopsy. More reactions here. Video via FDL.

JIM LEHRER: Now that, of course, was Gov. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, making the Republican response. David, how well do you think he did?

DAVID BROOKS: Uh, not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I oppose the stimulus because I thought it was poorly drafted. But to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" - it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we're just gonna - that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that - In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say "government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending," it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate. Some people say the Republican Party lost its way because they got too moderate. Some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and so he's making that case. I think it's insane, and I just think it's a disaster for the party. I just think it's unfortunate right now.

Obama dines with George Will, Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks, Bill Kristol

By GottaLaff

Wowzers, President-elect Obama is even braver than Batman, Superman, and Spidey all rolled into one!

He's dining at the Chevy Chase home of Washington Post columnist George Will with the Post's Charles Krauthammer and the New York Times's David Brooks and William Kristol. All three wrote, at times, both kind and scathing things about Obama, though Kristol in particular pushed sharp attack lines against him in the waning days of the race.

I hope he got his rabies shots first.

And here the righties thought he'd be a weak leader... At the very least, this proves he has a strong stomach.