Deprogramming Brooks

July 29, 2011

Deprogramming Brooks

I'm enjoying the unseemly, internal, and rather lop-sided spat at the NY Times, mostly because of its unseemliness. It would appear that Paul Krugman has decided he has a readership of one: David Brooks.

As the latter inches farther away on the lunchbench from his increasingly lunatic associates on the right, he resists asking, unlike whom Andrew Sullivan labels as the "arch-Tory Charles Moore": "[I]s the Left right after all?" And Brooks' timidity drives Krugman nearly as crazy as the right is driving Brooks.

In his writing Krugman now resembles a diligent deprogrammer who's forever on the verge of breaking his Moonie-like charge, but can't quite get him to emotionally snap and blurt humiliated confessions of Wrong-Thinking. So Krugman has resorted to remote taunting, a kind of "You know who you are -- David."

Krugman, two weeks ago:

There aren’t many positive aspects to the looming possibility of a U.S. debt default. But there has been, I have to admit, an element of comic relief — of the black-humor variety — in the spectacle of so many people who have been in denial suddenly waking up and smelling the crazy.

Today:

So what’s with the buzz about a centrist uprising? As I see it, it’s coming from people who recognize the dysfunctional nature of modern American politics, but refuse, for whatever reason, to acknowledge the one-sided role of Republican extremists in making our system dysfunctional. And it’s not hard to guess at their motivation. After all, pointing out the obvious truth gets you labeled as a shrill partisan, not just from the right, but from the ranks of self-proclaimed centrists.

Other examples abound, but you get the point. Such cattiness from the old grey lady. Unseemly? Sure. But it's a hoot.

Jul 29, 2011 9:24:08 AM