David Brooks Also Eats Cereal .:. grubbykid.com

David Brooks Also Eats Cereal

In today's breakfast-cereal age, there are two types of people in the world, those who like to look into their bowl at a sea of desiccated marshmallows, and those who prefer an unsweetened alternative made from whole-grain oats. I call them the Lucky Charmers and the Cheerioians.
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That group is the Cheerioians, because the Lucky Charmers are six years old, and therefore cannot vote. More importantly, they can't read my columns, which unerringly describe the shape and fabric of the America that exists inside my own head.

OK, so I know that was satire, but it brings up a point I want to make. I about have had it with David Brooks and his Red Statte/Blue State schtick. It is way more divisive than analytical, and has been proven not to fact check his thesis.

People forget that Mr. Brooks is comes from the infamous "Neoconservative" cadre, who think (among other things) that invading Iraq would be a piece of cake, we would be greated as liberators, that Iraq would cause a "reverse domino effect" and bring democracy to a region that has never seen a democracy, and we could do it on the cheap. This is why it was almost unconscionable for PBS to have him on as an analyst for the Democratic and Republican conventions opposite Mark Shields. Mr. Brooks was almost tripping over himself in praise during the RNC, especially when Karl Rove came on as a guest.

Please Mr. Brooks, go away and play with your toy soldiers, so you don't help send more of our real soldiers off to die in Iraq.

UPDATE 20040922 14:45
See, the Red/Blue state paradigm gives us articles like this. While not exactly wrong, it creates an unnecessary divide, when America is already divided. Painting whole parts of America with a wide brush is dangerous. Yes, New York is overwhelmingly progressive, and yes, Texas is overwhelmingly conservative. But this discounts Wall Street and parts of the Upper East Side, not to mention Staten Island in New York as bastions of conservatives. And it forgets Austin, Texas, a Liberal island in a sea of red. But our differences are magnitudes smaller than what we hold in common; we want to be safe, our children to grow up to achieve and have a better life than us, we want to be happy. We want the same thing, only we want it in different ways. Not every method to happiness is the best, but our collective wants and needs, not to mention what makes us all Americans, is greater than our divisions. Only those who try to divide us for political purposes (Mr. Rove), or freighten us with impending doom (Mr. Cheney), are actually doing wrong. that is why I find so despicable Mr. Rove's plan to divide America for political purposes so wrong.

I leave you with a line out of Barak Obama's speech, which Mr. Brooks conveniently decided to forget parts of, when he was working for PBS (guess which parts):

It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother�s keeper, I am my sister�s keeper that makes this country work. It�s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America � there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America � there�s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I�ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don�t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we�ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

UPDATE 20040926 9:00
Not to continue the pile on of Mr. brooks, but here is a great example of what happens when your simplistic logic is applied to a complex situation: (via)

You�ve got to have a political strategy and you�ve got to have a military strategy. � You�ve got to use our Iraqis, the Iraqis who want a democratic Iraq to give them something concrete, win them over. But then you�ve got to have a military strategy too and those are the people who, like Zarqawi, who just want to spread death and destruction. So, what you do is you win over the people you can, town by town and then you kill the people you can.

OK, so there are only two sides: The pro "democracy" side and the terrorists lead by al Zarqawi. Those who don't want democracy, which is only a shorthand for the government we installed in Bagdad (ie not legitamate), and we should kill the other ones. Because anyone who has a different view shoud be killed because they aren't helping the "democratic" process. This is just insane! Perhaps some of those who are joining the insurgency aren't interested in some sort of Pan Arabic new-dynasty that the likes of al Qaeda dream of, but are just sick of their friends being killed?

Nevermind that there is no democracy in Iraq (we installed the Prime Minister) and that there will never be a democracy in Iraq. Never. Look at a map on the MIddle East - how many are democracies and are Muslim? None. Not that they can't handle, or want, or we are bigoted toward Muslims. For those who practice Islam, the only law is Allah's law recorded by the prophet and the teaching of the al Sunnah. Democracy is man's law, and therefore not perfect.

Mr. Brooks lives in some sort of simple, childlike fantasy land where things are really simple. Things are not simple, nor are they black and white. He needs to go so that the grown-ups can over.

UPDATE 20040926
Surprise, surprise: someone else thinks Mr. Brooks is a hack

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October 4, 2004 · Grubbykid.com :: Links - David Brooks: Wrong On The Debates, Wrong On Morality

David Brooks Also Eats Cereal

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