Back To David Brooks

I was going to write about David Brooks's latest pronouncement that he made on last Friday's PBS News Hour, and I'll get to that, but in searching for an image to put at the top of this post, I ran into the one above. You might think somebody had photoshopped a photo of Hunter off the notorious laptop onto the great man's visage, but on fact, the photo is from 2015, when Hunter's own crack-addled capers were hardly a glimmer in his own eye. The title of the oddly sibylline piece where it appeared was I Don't Think David Brooks Is Okay, You Guys, and it was written by Albert Bourneko.

It's strangely prophetic in more than one way, because it mirrors the impression I've begun to have that there's a connection between David Brooks's world view and that of another sage observer of our time, the powerful new novelist Kevin Morris. A few weeks ago, I noticed that both Brooks and Morris focus on the creature Brooks calls Patio Man, the prosperous former Democrat who's moved over to the Trump column. Bourneko saw this trend nearly a decade ago in Brooks's writing:

I’ve been a pretty regular reader of the New York Times columnist since before he even came to the Times, going all the way back to his seminal 2000 book Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There, which revealed, to the astonishment of various residents of the East Coast media world’s upper crust, that the rich white people of the Clinton years were different from previous generations of rich white people, because they used their money to buy elite refrigerators instead of jewel-encrusted top hats.

But Bourneko also saw a darker shift:

When David Brooks’s marriage collapsed, reportedly, around the end of 2013, it should have freed him to enjoy the spoils of pundit-class celebrity. He would be Out There, America’s most eligible thinkfluencer, thinkfluencing a perky publishing assistant onto his elbow for mutually rewarding committed relationship action and/or love!

. . . How he burns with resentment. The hot millennials do not want a New York Times columnist from whom to receive stimulating discourse about the moral and attitudinal deficiencies of the poor. No, they want a “not-repulsive person” who “does not look like a waxed talpid,” thanks to some cockamamie notion that “sexual attraction” might be a more fruitful basis for a relationship than “being lectured by a fusty boomer pissbaby about how masculine chivalry is the bedrock of civilization and both were destroyed by the sexual revolution.”

Which brings me to the question of how at the News Hour, anchors have come and gone, other talking heads have come and gone, interlocutors for David Brooks have come and gone, but David Brooks remains. And as of last Friday,,

New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that he thinks President Joe Biden’s staff overprotects him and that the President should be out in public more. Brooks also said that from what he hears from inside the Biden White House, the President’s “not a doddering old grandpa either.” And Biden “can be a very tough, mean guy and a very harsh boss sometimes.”

Brooks said, “[L]onger-term…I do think Biden is still underexposed. I think his staff is still overprotective of him. And he’s much smarter in public than a lot of people think — in private. And so, I do think they need to let him get out more, because it’s just not good for the presidency for him to be that much in the shadow of Donald Trump.”

Wait a moment. And he’s much smarter in public than a lot of people think — in private? What on earth does that mean? It sounds as though whatever ails the big guy isn't conventionally contagious, since Brooks imples he's not around Joe all that much, but somehow, mentally, he and Biden are starting to get into the same groove. So he thinks Biden should be "out in public more". Here's the problem. When Biden's out in public, he does things like try to do a little skip to prove he's spry, but instead, he falls over, which is what happened in Colorado Springs.

Or, asked about the allegations that he'd taken a $5 million bribe, he answers, "Where's the money? I'm joking. It's a bunch of malarkey," which, like Brooks's own remarks is meaningless. But Brooks goes on to say, "He’s like — can be a very tough, mean guy and a very harsh boss sometimes."

So what are the fruits of this tough, harsh, mean, demanding boss? Just yesterday, we saw his staff in action yet again:

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will welcome the NCAA men’s and women’s national championship teams to “College Athlete Day” at the White House on Monday.

In an email from the White House Office of Legislative Affairs addressed to members of Congress, Covid protocols were listed, notifying lawmakers that they would need to show a negative Covid test before being allowed to attend the event. If unvaccinated, the attendees must wear a mask and social distance.

“Masking guidance: Fully vaccinated guests are not required to wear a mask on the White House grounds. Guests who are not fully vaccinated must wear a mask at all times and maintain at least six feet distance from others while on the White House grounds,” the email states.

How 2022! The crack White House staff, with Mean Joe at the reins, belatedly recognized its mistake:

But the federal government has already terminated the national emergency declaration for the COVID-19 pandemic.

. . . But later in the week, the White House told Fox News Digital that the guidance in the email had been sent inadvertently and was out of date, according to the outlet. A White House spokesperson said they might be sending out another email before Monday's event with the up-to-date guidance.

It might be a better idea to surmise, contra Brooks, that Biden has exactly the sort of staff he deserves, if not just what he wants as well. I don't think it's out of line to suggest that, even if Biden isn't a doddering old grandpa, something's seriously off. I continue to think a medical diagnosis isn't necessary to draw some tentative conclusion about wnat's up, and we may not need to go much farther than the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people’s lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area causes them to overestimate their own competence. Or maybe just the Peter Principle, which simply says that people rise to their level of incompetence.

But a better interpretation might come from Catholic moral philosophy: as St Thomas Aquinas puts it, sin dulls the intellect. Here we have an individual who represents himself as a Roman Catholic -- he attends weekly mass, and that paragon of virtue Hunter goes with him when he's in town. (I would add the caveat that like another sketchy public Catholic, Speaker Emeritus Pelosi, he was formed in the faith before the Second Vatican Council, so that can't be blamed.)

Yet Biden continues to endorse public policy directly opposed to Catholic teaching, including recent statements by the current pontiff on transsexualism. I don't think we need to go a whole lot farther than just to ask about that contradiction. Let's say you're with the whole LGBTQIA+ program. Shouoldn't you be wondering why Biden goes to mass every week? Why can't he drop that superatitious medievalism? Isn't he living a basic contradiction, and doesn't this in some way affect his mental health?

Even David Brooks ought to be able to acknowledge this, except that even in 2015, some guy named Albert Bourneko thought there was a basic problem there, too.