I don’t think he’s real popular at AEI and on the other hand his association with them might actually hurt him in some quarters. I’ve always liked him, he used to be a regular on a radio show I used to listen to. I can’t recall which one though.
2 Likes
I´ve always thought that he was being straight forward, even when I disagreed with him. That´s pretty rare.
6 Likes
You won’t believe your eyes but David Brooks just woke up and will explain it all to you.
I am almost tempted to laugh , but it is not funny as we will be living this for the foreseeable future.
The Republicans’ Incompetence Caucus.
14 Likes
You’re analogy to the politburo is probably close to the mark.
6 Likes
Al Franken’s show on Air America. Norm and Al go way back. Ornstein is awesome, one of my favorite twitter follows, too. Nobody knows Congress better, and in today’s age, he truly is about as close to nonpartisan as you can find.
He catches a lot of crap because, right now, the GOP IS a fault for so much of what’s going wrong in D.C. And yeah, he has been tickled pink that people are finally calling him now that the Speaker race has blown up.
Major kudos to Ms Sneed for this one 
21 Likes
An elementary school child could see the growing schism in the Republican Cult. The sick extremism fueled by Roosh’ Limpballz’, Beck, FOX’s myriad Rightie mouthpieces…etc. and other screaming Rightie media banshees and cultivated and embraced by the GOP establishment ( -believing they had tapped the energy in the grassroots that would give them, to quote ‘the architect’ Rove, “…a permanent conservative majority-”) found, instead, that they created a Right Wingnut Fear & Hate Machine that promises to be the death of that party. As as that party now exists, good riddance to bad trash. Tossing the GOP Cult on the garbage heap of history would be good for this republic and the planet. One only hopes they don’t do irreparable harm as they continue to devolve.
8 Likes
He has been doing it for a very long time, however. Basically, he provides AEI cover by being intellecutually honest and nonpartisan, and they pay him well for that. Norm I think is happy to be receiving a paycheck and is going to keep on doing what he is doing, regardless of who is signing the paycheck.
5 Likes
This is the exact opposite of the downfall of the Whigs. The Whigs evaporated because they were a party that tried to paper over the growing sectional difference with a vaguely defined nationalism, in favor of things like internal improvements and well, stuff, you know. Maybe, um, tariffs? They had a penchant for nominating successful old military heroes who, if they won, died within months. Benjamin Harrison, Zachary Taylor. Winfield Scott barely escaped death by losing in 1852.
The Whigs collapsed in the face of the rise of the northern anti-slavery parties that rapidly coalesced into the Republican Party. At which point, most of the Southern Whigs suddenly discovered they didn’t hate Democrats all that much after all.
The Federalists are a somewhat better model. They lost their grip on national power due to a combination of internal strife and a commitment to policies that benefitted narrow, regional economic interests but were wildly unpopular in the south, mid-atlantic and on the frontier. They then receded into a purely regional party that had an iron grip on state and local politics in the Northeast but never could mount a successful national campaign because of the same policies that kept them in control of the Northeast. They then collapsed and dissolved after making ugly noises about secession over Jefferson’s embargo policies and opposition to the (initially) wildly popular War of 1812. The Whigs absorbed most of their members and were like a pale shadow of them that tried to avoid the trap of being committed to policies that alienated most of the country by not being for much of anything specifically other than internal improvements and tariffs, both of which were sufficient to alienate the slave-power southerners.
13 Likes
TPM asked one of the co-authors if he was feeling any vindication.
“Damn straight I do,” Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said in an interview with TPM late last week. “But I would have rather been proven wrong – honest to God – because we’re talking about the fucking country that is at stake here.”
Add to this the malpractice of the remnants of the Fourth Estate.
Oh…and also Rupert Murdoch.
14 Likes
Actually, I don’t think it does, though it is a poorly worded sentence on her part.
"His and Mann’s book was warmly received in some quarters, while many conservatives – and even some residing in Washington’s “centrist” corridors – rejected their premise. The Weekly Standard called the book “relentlessly one-sided.” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin wondered if Mann and Ornstein’s analysis was “parody.” The National Review said, “Their argument bears all of the characteristics, and the subtlety, of a rant.”
“while many conservatives” is the key phrase I think she was trying to play upon by giving those quotes. Nobody believes the Weekly Standard, Rubin or the National Review are “centrists”. All three are about as conservative as you can get.
Basically, she could/should have left off the “and even some residing in Washington’s “centrist” corridors”. That only serves to confuse the paragraph. Either that or she should have ordered it better and included some “centrist” criticisms for Ornstein and Mann’s book. Problem there was probably finding any actual centrists, even more difficult in finding any that actually read books like this.
6 Likes
Anyone observing the Republicans since the Gingrich years sees nothing surprising about the present meltdown. Official Washington is taken totally by surprise.
12 Likes
The problem with that playbook, however, is that once you build a majority on the distaste for government, it’s hard to get that majority to govern.
That’s not the problem; that was the entire point.
12 Likes
NYT today:
Far-right media figures, relatively small in number but potent in their
influence, have embarked on a furious Internet expedition to cover
Representative Paul D. Ryan in political silt.
The crazies will settle for nothing less than the fall of our democracy.
Traitors?
4 Likes
If it’s one thing that the current GOP does, it’s strike at anyone or anything that steps on it’s toe — Boehner’s no different — I expect him to go ahead and start poking a few skewers into some of the hardliners —
2 Likes
“You create a monster and you think the monster will respond to your commands, and suddenly find that the monster doesn’t treat you any differently than he does your other enemies, and you’ve got a problem," Ornstein said.
Daenerys Targaryen for Speaker of the House!
5 Likes
The books received a subdued response from the “Villagers” who who can’t survive without some delusional version of “he said/she said” balance.
4 Likes
I know the ‘tea’ keeps scalding you Repukes, so just hold it a little closer. There ya’ go.
Hey RepubliKKKlans’! YOU built that! Enjoy.
13 Likes
Jennifer Rubin is a centrist? Did they ever read her opinion pieces? She’s relentlessly conservative and terminally stupid. And contradicts herself from blog post to blog post. The best part of her blog is the comments section.
7 Likes
Brooks has been putting out one of these fairly routinely for a few years now. He frets, gets smacked around the “real” conservatives a bit, and then falls back into line praising the awesomeness that is the conservative mindset in America.
Its kind of his whole deal.
There are hints even in this article.
“Republicans came to see themselves as insurgents and revolutionaries, and every revolution tends toward anarchy and ends up devouring its own.”
Followed by:
"Conservatives started talking about the Reagan “revolution,” the Gingrich “revolution.”
That’s two “revolutions” that Brooks was only too happy to blow the horn for. But now, or today at least, revolutions bring anarchy and devouring of each other (Nevermind the obvious example of the revolution that founded the very country he writes about!).
And of course, Brooks acts quite surprised that this has come about, and may even point to the various other articles he has written over the years along the same lines. And completely ignore the many more articles he writes in between each while praise the GOP for exactly the same tactics and results.
Brooks isn’t dull, but he isn’t as bright as he thinks he is. And he isn’t soulless, he just sold it off a long time ago.
15 Likes
I think this nails it but I also think he’s pretty dumb and can’t possibly have an ounce of self awareness.
3 Likes