David Brooks's Elitist Populism:
This morning was it. It was the breaking point for the Rude Pundit, a kind of "That's All I Can Stands, I Can't Stands No More" moment. David Brooks, New York Times conservative columnist, must stop pretending that he speaks for anyone more than the elitist conservative theory class that pontificates as if it understands what the average person needs or wants. Or he must be whipped in the streets like a craven cur that begs and whines endlessly for your food, your hand, your approval.

Few things in this world are more vomit-inducing than listening to elitists feign faux populism, whether it's your William Kristols, your Bob Novaks, and on and on, faking it like the screaming orgasm of an old porn star whose pussy is so desensitized she wouldn't know sexual pleasure if it fucked her backwards and forwards. The Rude Pundit'd like to drag the whole group of 'em to a seedy bar in the Bywater area of New Orleans and let 'em talk to the crazed, half-drunk, depressed, economically-fucked denizens there and ask 'em what they give a shit about. And then the Rude Pundit would laugh like a hyena as Kristol, Novak, and Brooks try to talk themselves out of a pool cue reaming.

In today's column, Brooks places blame for the dissolution of national discourse, for the polarization of left and right, for the uproar about judicial activism squarely where it belongs: in the wombs of poor women. There's so many astonishing leaps of logic and ignorance of history in this single column that entire dissertations could be written about all that's absent from Brooks's "analysis" of the state of American politics.

See if you can follow the bouncing ball of breathtaking bullshit: Roe v. Wade is made law, the decision written by Harry Blackmun "took the abortion issue out of the legislatures and put it into the courts." This is because now abortion is legalized around the nation, rather than decided on a state-by-state basis. "If it had remained in the legislatures, we would have seen a series of state-by-state compromises reflecting the views of the centrist majority that's always existed on this issue. These legislative compromises wouldn't have pleased everyone, but would have been regarded as legitimate," spouts Brooks.

Now here's where it all gets maniacal: religious conservatives are alientated from government by liberal "elitists," liberals see the courts as the place to battle for rights, and the battle for judicial nominees rides the waves of the polarized ocean of rhetoric, leading to greater and greater breakdowns in civility in the process of confirming judges, a breakdown that bleeds into other areas of political discourse, which leads, finally, to the threat of the elimination of the filibuster, laws passed that say Ted Kennedy must dance pantsless on The O'Reilly Factor, and the building of idols to the regent-like power of the presidency, as long, of course, as it's a Republican president. "Unless Roe vs. Wade is overturned," Brooks says, "politics will never get better."

What horseshit. What a complete misunderstanding of history, of the workings of the American government, what a fuckin' blame-the-victim mentality. Let's toss this around for a moment or two. Why blame the Supreme Court? Why not blame the Texas legislature, which had outlawed abortion, thus forcing Norma McCorvey to go to court in order to overturn the law? Why not blame Richard Nixon, for appointing Harry Blackmun and Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court? Or Ike for appointing Potter Stewart and William Brennan? Or how about blaming the sperm that nuzzled with the egg in McCorvey's womb? The penis from which the sperm spewed? Do you see the absurdity of attempting to isolate Roe v. Wade?

Or how about this: the real polarization of American politics in regards to abortion came with the craven efforts of Ronald Reagan to reach out to fundamentalist Christians so he could get elected President. Reagan had legalized abortion in California, a decision he would later say he "agonized over" and "regretted." But the fact remains that Reagan became an anti-abortion amendment advocate when he needed the votes, thus continuing the pattern of pandering to the religious right that empowered so many of the so-called leaders of that movement. And perfected by Lee Atwater and buffed to a fine polish by Karl Rove.

So Brooks would rather a nation where abortion is legal in, say, Illinois and illegal in Arizona? He'd like to go back to bloody alleys and that type of shit? He'd rather a nation where the tyranny of the majority, in the states and in the nation, can enforce its will on individual bodies and voices. What a stooge. What an apologist. What a depressing waste of editorial space.

David Brooks has pretenses of populism, of insight, but he is merely another example of the Northern conservative elite believing that they understand the "common" person when, really, all they're doing is piping the way to the caves that will close up on all of us.