Paul Krugman makes David Brooks look like a fool because Brooks has no idea what he's talking about.

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It was somewhat gratifying to see Chris Matthews' right-leaning panel on his Sunday show -- which was, as expected, eager to deny the role of racism in the ugly animus that's been directed at Barack Obama -- at least admit the truth:

David Brooks: What Rush and Glenn Beck are doing is race-baiting. 100 percent. That's race-baiting.

...

Kathleen Parker: What Rush Limbaugh and Beck did in those two clips is to empower racists.

But it was even more interesting to watch Brooks in particular somehow manage to stumble upon the core of the problem:

Matthews: Would the White House like the leaders of both parties to say, 'Cool it'?

Brooks: Well, I think they would. First, I think Father Coughlin was objecting to FDR, and he -- that's what we're seeing, Father Coughlin, that's what these guys are --

Matthews: And he was far right.

Brooks: He was far right. The White House understands, you've got 10 percent of the country over here on the wacky right, 10 percent on the wacky left, that's not what they can pay attention to. And they're not going to pay attention to it. They're sticking with the independents -- that's what the health care, why it's tending toward the center.

The one danger -- the main danger of all this, the Glenn and the Rush and all that -- they're not going to take over the country. But they are taking over the Republican Party.

And so if the Republican Party is sane, they will say no to these people. But every single elected leader in the Republican Party is afraid to take on Rush and Glenn Beck.

Brooks' percentages are off -- it's more like about 5 percent on the left and 30 percent on the right side, and this latter fact is actually what he identifies as the problem; the right has been so overwhelmed by its wingnutty elements that they have largely taken over the GOP at this juncture in time. And there's no prospect of the David Brookses ever getting it back -- in no small part because they refuse to acknowledge the magnitude of what they're up against.

But at least they recognize the problem. That's a start.

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DownWithTyranny!: McCain's latest stunt backfires...badly. Some observers believe the real motive for the Psychogeezer's latest gimmick is to keep Sarah Palin from spending another moment of unscripted time in public. But count on McCain - if he shows up for the debate - to try and work his surge-centric attack on Obama's judgment into every answer, no matter what the question. Some of us remember a time when McCain always called for withdrawal of troops.

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In an earlier post, C&L and many other sites caught David Brooks say this:

DAVID BROOKS, “NEW YORK TIMES: Obama‘s problem is he doesn‘t seem like a guy who can go into an Applebee‘s salad bar and people think he fits in naturally there. He has to change to be more like that Applebee‘s guy and as he‘s done that he‘s become much more transactional. Much more, I‘m going to deliver this and this and this to you on policy.

C&Ler Mitzi left this in the comment section:

I called my Applebee’s today to make sure I was correct and they do not have a salad bar. Just goes to show how much these people who make these comments have no idea how “regular people” live their lives.

I called an Applebee's also and they told me that none of their restaurants have a salad bar. David, sometimes the jokes write themselves. What an idiot.

The PA primary is finally here, right? I'm not dreaming. I won't wake up tomorrow and find out that it's still Monday?---That my life is caught in a Groundhog day type loop where the PA primary is always just a day away and I have to go over the latest tracking poll numbers every twenty minutes while David Brooks keeps repeating his "war games" test for the presidency over and over and over again...

David Brooks never had a chance...Check out all four parts...

Uniongal at DailyKos

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(O)n Democracy Now! Jeremy Scahill author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" debated Doug Brooks the president of International Peace Operations Association, a trade group for the private security industry of which Blackwater is a founding member. In the wake of the recent revelations that the Iraqi government wants to throw out Blackwater and take a closer look at all of the contractors in Iraq Scahill does an excellent job taking down one of these war profiteers and tears right through the rhetoric and also gets staight to the heart of just what we're doing in Iraq.

The entire show and transcript can be seen at Can Iraq (or Anyone) Hold Blackwater Accountable for Killing Iraqi Civilians? A Debate on the Role of Private Contractors in Iraq on Democracy Now's web site.

  This new Bin Laden tape has the right wingers acting like idiots. On the one hand, they are thrilled because they feel any reminder of the terrorist "threat" is good for the GOP. That's nothing new, I know.

But on the other hand, they have to understand that if one thinks about it even a little, it hurts Bush, since he should have got Bin Laden already, so they are stuck trying to figure a way out of that narrative. The best they can come up with is that Bin Laden either sounds like a Democrat or as the NY Times wingnut op-ed columnist David Brooks opines:

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Brooks: I mean on one hand he's a malevolent guy who killed three thousand Americans, but you read this thing and it's like he's been sitting around reading lefty blogs and one of these childish people posting rants at the bottom of the page (garbled) Noam Chomsky and all this stuff.

That's right, Bin Laden sounds just like a lefty blogger, or worse, Chomsky.  I tell you what,  I'll line up anything I've ever written against Wanker Brooks.  I promise you, his average of being right is well below the Mendoza line.  In fact, let's look at this January 2005 essay by Chomsky:

Let's just imagine what the policies might be of an independent Iraq, independent, sovereign Iraq, let's say more or less democratic, what are the policies likely to be?

Well there's going to be a Shiite majority, so they'll have some significant influence over policy. The first thing they'll do is reestablish relations with Iran. Now they don't particularly like Iran, but they don't want to go to war with them so they'll move toward what was happening already even under Saddam, that is, restoring some sort of friendly relations with Iran.

That's the last thing the United States wants. It has worked very hard to try to isolate Iran. The next thing that might happen is that a Shiite-controlled, more or less democratic Iraq might stir up feelings in the Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia, which happen to be right nearby and which happen to be where all the oil is. So you might find what in Washington must be the ultimate nightmare-a Shiite region which controls most of the world's oil and is independent.

Hmmm....does that sound like loony left ravings to you?  Contrast that to the fact checking I found for Brook's January 29, 2005 NYT op-ed from the aptly named "David Brooks is a moron".  'Nuff said.

(thanks to Nicole for her help)

This clip from Tuesday's "Tucker" will get your blood boiling before he even finishes the setup. Tucker discusses the ACLU's recent lawsuit on behalf of three victims of the U.S. government's extraordinary rendition program with the Hill's A.B. Stoddard and L.A. Times columnist Rosa Brooks. The ever-whiny Carlson attempts to meld the ACLU with the Democrats and suggests that their lawsuit makes the left appear soft on terror, but Brooks shreds his talking points, one by one.  Tucker's ratings aren't as bad as Glenn Beck's, but it's still a mystery why MSNBC keeps him around.

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