Palin - A Fatal Cancer

**SAINT_X** · October 10th, 2008, 09:34 AM

If you don't know who David Brooks is, look him up. He is a Conservative Republican True Believer...but maybe he is putting his country first because McCain - Palin are so obviously in moral, as well as electoral, free fall.

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David Brooks: Sarah Palin "Represents A Fatal Cancer To The Republican Party"
E-mailed to me | October 8, 2008 | Danny Shea

Posted on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 5:16:45 PM by publius1

David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."

In an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg at New York's Le Cirque restaurant to unveil that magazine's redesign, Brooks decried Palin's anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party. When I first started in journalism, I worked at the National Review for Bill Buckley. And Buckley famously said he'd rather be ruled by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. But he didn't think those were the only two options. He thought it was important to have people on the conservative side who celebrated ideas, who celebrated learning. And his whole life was based on that, and that was also true for a lot of the other conservatives in the Reagan era. Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

Brooks praised Palin's natural political talent, but said she is "absolutely not" ready to be president or vice president. He explained, "The more I follow politicians, the more I think experience matters, the ability to have a template of things in your mind that you can refer to on the spot, because believe me, once in office there's no time to think or make decisions."

The New York Times columnist also said that the "great virtue" of Palin's counterpart, Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, is that he is anything but a "yes man."

"[Biden] can't not say what he thinks," Brooks remarked. "There's no internal monitor, and for Barack Obama, that's tremendously important to have a vice president who will be that way. Our current president doesn't have anybody like that."

Brooks also spent time praising Obama's intellect and skills in social perception, telling two stories of his interactions with Obama that left him "dazzled":

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

And the other thing that does separate Obama from just a pure intellectual: he has tremendous powers of social perception. And this is why he's a politician, not an academic. A couple of years ago, I was writing columns attacking the Republican congress for spending too much money. And I throw in a few sentences attacking the Democrats to make myself feel better. And one morning I get an email from Obama saying, 'David, if you wanna attack us, fine, but you're only throwing in those sentences to make yourself feel better.' And it was a perfect description of what was going through my mind. And everybody who knows Obama all have these stories to tell about his capacity for social perception.

Brooks predicted an Obama victory by nine points, and said that although he found Obama to be "a very mediocre senator," he was is surrounded by what Brooks called "by far the most impressive people in the Democratic party."

"He's phenomenally good at surrounding himself with a team," Brooks said. "I disagree with them on most issues, but I am given a lot of comfort by the fact that the people he's chosen are exactly the people I think most of us would want to choose if we were in his shoes. So again, I have doubts about him just because he was such a mediocre senator, but his capacity to pick staff is impressive."

**A1food4U** · October 10th, 2008, 10:12 AM

I can't believe you'd post something where Barack is called a ""mediocre Senator" could this be a new phase?!?!

**wil** · October 10th, 2008, 10:49 AM

The first sentence is all I had to read.

Quote:

David Brooks spoke frankly about the presidential and vice presidential candidates Monday afternoon, calling Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party" but describing John McCain and Barack Obama as "the two best candidates we've had in a long time."

IMHO, anyone who would consider either of those jokers "best candidates" for anything would not pass my test as a true conservative.

Wait... is that article from The Onion?

**JarheadRI** · October 10th, 2008, 11:18 AM

Awesome article!

**tidalwave** · October 10th, 2008, 11:55 AM

Quote:

"by far the most impressive people in the Dem.... socialist party."

There we go.

**wildstang** · October 10th, 2008, 12:05 PM

i bet hilary thinks she was the answer to all our problems!....lmao

**wil** · October 10th, 2008, 01:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A1food4U

I can't believe you'd post something where Barack is called a ""mediocre Senator" could this be a new phase?!?!

Perhaps that phrase is what qualifies David Brooks as a "Conservative Republican True Believer".

**SAINT_X** · October 10th, 2008, 01:13 PM

These frenzied attacks by McCain and Palin are getting out of hand. Good God, John McCain knows as well as anyone that this business of connecting Obama to some fanatic from the 60's who is now a respected member of the Chicago academic community is absurd. If not, how far does he have to look to find character references for this Ayers guy? Not far...some of his biggest donors, the Annenberg family Chicago Annenberg Challenge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia donated 50 million dollars to the educational org he sat on the board of.

This business of enciting crowds into a rabid frenzy of hate, just because he is losing and desperate, cannot be tolerated. Have we not had political figures murdered in this country in the last 50 years? Can they not see where this might go? If McCain hopes to be remembered as an honorable man he needs to win or lose with some semblance of dignity...and honor.

Cooler heads must prevail...and apparently those cooler heads are not McCain and Palin.

**wil** · October 10th, 2008, 01:23 PM

I mentioned this the other day and just found this blog...

What If John McCain Were Friends With An Unrepentant Abortion Clinic Bomber | KXNet.com North Dakota News

**A1food4U** · October 10th, 2008, 01:29 PM

I gotta agree on this one point. I still haven't decided. But McCain's ads are starting to get on my nerves. I have never been one to like attack style ads (by attack I mean going after obtuse points and personal issues) I get that when Barack was young he may or may not have made an unwise choice or two. But who among us hasn't??? I still think both sides are woefully behind in giving us reasons to vote FOR someone, they seem caught up in the why NOT to vote campaign strategy and it's hurting us all who would think for ourselves....

**wil** · October 10th, 2008, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A1food4U

I gotta agree on this one point. I still haven't decided. But McCain's ads are starting to get on my nerves. I have never been one to like attack style ads (by attack I mean going after obtuse points and personal issues) I get that when Barack was young he may or may not have made an unwise choice or two. But who among us hasn't??? I still think both sides are woefully behind in giving us reasons to vote FOR someone, they seem caught up in the why NOT to vote campaign strategy and it's hurting us all who would think for ourselves....

I know I'll get an earfull (eyefull?) after posting this but what the hey...

I don't think either of them have any convincing reasons as far as why to vote FOR them so all they can do is paint the other guy as worse.

puts on broken record
I say this about McCain as well because as I have stated many times before I am not a fan of the guy. I don't like half of the things he stands for. The really sad thing is... I don't like 90% of what Obama stands for. So I am basically stuck with looking at them both and asking which guy I would MORE NOT want to be president and then pull the lever with the other guy's name on it. That to me is very very discouraging.

Interestingly, I have yet to hear any Obama supporter mention a single thing they don't like about their man. That leads me to believe that they like all of his policies and foresee him as THE PERFECT PRESIDENT. Consider yourselves very lucky. Heck, I don't even agree on every issue with the people I end up voting for in my local or state elections.

**tidalwave** · October 10th, 2008, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wil

they like all of his policies and foresee him as THE PERFECT PRESIDENT.

It's easy to be the Perfect President when you tell people exactly what they want to hear.

**cptobvious** · October 10th, 2008, 02:33 PM

i have researched both candidates. to call these two "the two best candidates we've had in a long time" speaks volumes about how sad things have gotten. i don't think either set of them is a good choice either, but i will most likely go McCain-Palin. we have no great choice here. Obama has stated himself, only a couple years ago, that he would not even think of running for president b/c he lacked the exp. and he was not ready. biden also said the same thing of him just last year! now biden is his running mate?
Now Obama is ready? i don't get it. how did Obama suddenly become so ready to take on the job? he is not from what i have read and seen.

**SAINT_X** · October 10th, 2008, 02:37 PM

Key point...

People are not yelling "KILL HIM" at Obama's and Biden's rallies.

**wil** · October 10th, 2008, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tidalwave

It's easy to be the Perfect President when you tell people exactly what they want to hear.

True... it's just that I have a really hard time believing that anyone could be on board with EVERYTHING Obama says. Or maybe I'm just an idiot for not walking the line and spouting only the positives about the guy from my party (although the republican party is more and more drifting away from my core beliefs so to call them "my party" is sorta pathetic).