The Center Holds - NYT - Brooks

Here's the thesis, the netroots is over-rated, so over-rated that politicians attend their big conference - The Yearly Kos - and then, don't know what it was when asked (Edwards). Seriously, David Brooks advances the idea that Hillary is inevitable because she ignores the netroots and the big money lefties. While it is true that she holds a sizable lead over the next two candidates, that lead amounts to a little over a third of Democratic voters.

But on to Brooks NYT stuff , "In the first place, the netroots candidates are losing. In the various polls on the Daily Kos Web site, John Edwards, Barack Obama and even Al Gore crush Hillary Clinton, who limps in with 2 percent to 10 percent of the vote."

But Hillary knows what she's doing, " And while Clinton may not go out of her way to offend the MoveOn types, on her TV rounds on Sunday she made it obvious that she’s not singing their tune. On “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” Clinton could have vowed to vacate Iraq. Instead, she delivered hawkish mini-speeches that few Republicans would object to. She listed a series of threats and interests in the region and made it clear that she’d be willing to keep U.S. troops there to handle them. "

This kind of talk is going to make over half of America rather testy. Not the lefties, they rightfully detest Hillary, but the chunk that makes up the rest of the 60% who think the country is on the wrong track.

Now not only is the netroots over-rated it also isn't liked within the corridors of power, the people who actually understand things, "The fact is, many Democratic politicians privately detest the netroots’ self-righteousness and bullying. They also know their party has a historic opportunity to pick up disaffected Republicans and moderates, so long as they don’t blow it by drifting into cuckoo land. They also know that a Democratic president is going to face challenges from Iran and elsewhere that are going to require hard-line, hawkish responses."

The absolute Brooksian truth is that what we need is Bush-with-tits, she'll save us from our cuckoo land selves. the cuckoos who said Iraq was the wrong thing to do, the cuckoos who detest George II and his imperial presidency. If you're wondering how a NYT op-ed columnist could get from someplace to here, you need to understand how he got to NYT. He started on NYT op-ed in 9/03 and got there from...The Weekly Standard at its start up in '95, he got there from the WSJ leaving as op-ed editor. Now you have to stop and think about that one, the neanderthal WSJ op-ed page to Weekly Standard to NYT? 9/03? Judith Miller was really hitting her stride as BushCo propagandist about that time and NYT was lapping it up and dishing it out.

Brooks is realist enough to know that what's left of the Republican field at the end of the Primary season can't win, so is it possible he's cheerleading his favorite alternative to Bush? It must get downright schizophrenic over at NYT when it comes time to print. If they're America's paper of record, it must be by default. At least there's McClatchy and they bothered to cover George II at the UN...

William Douglas,

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, the president called for renewed efforts to enforce the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a striking point of emphasis for a leader who's widely accused of violating human rights in waging war against terrorism.
Bush didn't mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA's "rendition" kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world.