BOBO SPEAKS….Today’s David Brooks column about a bipartisan McCain-Lieberman “unity party” must have been a doozy. I haven’t read it myself, of course, but the reaction alone has been noteworthy. First, Bob Somerby goes after Brooks’s plea for civility:
Wow! For someone so deeply in love with civility, Brooks really lets himself go in this piece! He doesn?t name a single Democrat who has actually misbehaved; he doesn?t explain what any Dem has done wrong. But so what? In a sweeping, name-calling indictment, he seems to say that Lamont supporters are ?vicious? ?flamers? who have ?shelved their integrity? so they can ?engage in Sunni-Shiite politics.? They?re ?extremists,? we are told. Their partisanship has ?led them to malice.?
For ourselves, we?ll only say this about that: Thank God David Brooks is in love with civility! Just think how this morning?s piece might have read if he?d let his own venom break loose!
Next, Jon Chait expresses some skepticism over Brooks’s enthusiasm for the prospect that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would raise taxes and lower benefits:
Wait a second ? does David Brooks now agree that tax hikes as well as spending cuts are necessary? Funny, I can’t recall him mentioning that belief a single time during the last five and a half years while Republicans have relentlessly moved in the opposite direction. Kind of odd that he’s held back his view on the number one domestic policy question of the Bush presidency.
Finally, Matt Yglesias notes that on the most important issue of the day, McCain and Lieberman are the farthest thing you could imagine from “centrist”:
Are there any Republicans whose national security views are clearly more hawkish than McCain’s? I can’t think of any. For that matter, are there any Republicans whose national security views are clearly more hawkish than Lieberman’s? I can’t think of any either. Of the politicians who seem to have clear convictions on the topic, these are, I think, the two leading militarists in the United States Senate.
Sounds like the column must have rocked. Too bad I couldn’t read it. But I think I get the point anyway.
