The media’s fixation with confession continues. President Bush, Dana Milbank tells us, shouldn’t just express disappointment with the shortcomings of his time in office, but also admit error. Even though he held a remarkable presidential press conference, filled with the type of candor the media clamors for, the media tut-tutters still were not satisfied. It is not enough to express regret over small errors: a full-blown confession of failure is required, Milbank suggests:
When Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times asked him about pardons, he shot back: “I won’t be discussing pardons here at this press conference. Would you like to ask another question?”
Stolberg then invited him to confess his “single biggest mistake” — and Bush volunteered three little ones.
“Clearly putting a ‘Mission Accomplished’ on an aircraft carrier was a mistake,” he acknowledged. And: “Obviously, some of my rhetoric has been a mistake.”
And finally: “I believe that running the Social Security idea right after the ’04 elections was a mistake,” a reference to his push to allow some Americans to invest a portion of their own Social Security funds in the stock market.
That trio of small errors, of course, only proved Bush’s view that he has gotten the big things right. After a 45-minute tour of his triumphant presidency, he departed.
All of this is a bit strange, to put it mildly. Extracting confession is not the usual treatment the media reserves for acting or former presidents (Richard Nixon being the exception which proves the rule). Nor does that seem to be something that concerns the media about the incoming President (where it might actually have relevance). It actually might be helpful in understanding the President-elect’s thought process to get an answer to:”Mr. Obama, do you regret not supporting the surge?” I’m curious to hear his response to: ”Was it a mistake to promise to depart Iraq immediately?” Somehow those questions are never asked.
But more importantly, it is what it is. President Bush confessing error won’t change the facts of his presidency. Some grave “errors” and “disasters” have turned out fairly well, at least for now (e.g. Iraq); other efforts, albeit failed, may look principled in retrospect (e.g. immigration reform). The things we took for granted (e.g. no attack on American soil or interests abroad) may seem simply remarkable in the future. And the domestic legacy, especially on the economy, will depend in large part on his successor’s ability to prevent a recession from becoming a full-fledged depression — or a return to 1970s stagflation. But none of it depends, as the media’s desperation seems to imply, on a public confession. This is not (at least not yet) a country that conducts show trials or expects past leaders to publicly humiliate themselves.
The real take-away from this encounter is a contrast in personal grace and stature between the media — ever snide and, frankly, mean-spirited — and a president unwilling to seize on self-pity or criticize either the media inquisitors or his political opponents. As this report explains:
But Bush, seemingly freed to speak his mind as his tenure draws to a close, offered a bit more nuance and soul-searching than he usually does in such settings, pounding the lectern for emphasis at certain points and bantering with some of the reporters with whom he has sparred.
. . .
Far from seeming depressed about his coming loss of power, Bush seemed largely in good spirits. He opened the news conference by expressing appreciation for the media, even while he said that he did not like all the stories about him and thought, borrowing one of his famous malapropisms, that the press corps “sometimes misunderestimated me.”
At another point, Bush pursed his lips and mocked the suggestion that the burdens of office are too great. “It’s kind of like, why me? Oh, the burdens, you know. Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch? It’s just — it’s pathetic, isn’t it, self-pity?” Bush said.
Opinion is sharply divided on the Bush presidency, and many of us don’t yet have a firm grasp on how large the failures will loom and how significant the accomplishments may seem in hindsight. But if there were ever a more graceful exit by a president — both in the tone of his interviews and the magnanimous and robust cooperation with his successor (who excoriated him during the campaign in the most personal terms) — I can’t recall it. That too will be part of the legacy.
When, in disgust and shame in re one administration, one attributes more than necessary to a “savior” whose only background is as a community organizer, what else can be expected?
Uh Oh – who gives a crap about David Brooks? Certainly not the democratic base – you know – the one that got Obama into the White House and the one that seems to really like what he’s doing…
Uh Oh – J-Rub slips a bit more into obscurity…
David Brooks became pretty much of a RINO when he went to the NYTimes. Rubbing elbows with the elite left appears to do that to Republicans with supple backbones. That and his puppy-dog need to be liked — have you seen him on PBS? — meant his analytical powers such as they were were impaired. He’s back in the fold? That will last until the next time he’s invited to dine with Obama and his court.
Two other things that were most interesting about Brooks’s column: first, that it was a call for an organized political response against what Obama is doing; second, that Brooks said what many moderates think–the Republican Party as presently constituted is unfit to govern.
Republicans have lost the electorate by drifitn toward a variety of extreme forms within thier own colaition. From Huckabee to Palin to Limbaugh to Coulter, they have given up the center, which is why Obama managed to pull out a victory over the admirable but non-presidential John McCain and the interesting but scary Sarah Palin.
Now that Obama has abandoned a moderate stance, Brooks is really asking who will take leadership of the gret middle way in American poitics. Clinton did this very successfully in 1992. But no Democrat will be able to do it again for at least eight years.
So, the question really is: Are the Republicans capable of leading from the middle? Or are they just a mirror image of Obama’s extremism?
“one attributes more than necessary to a “savior” whose only background is as a community organizer, what else can be expected?”
That’s interesting comeing from a guy who put MD after his name? Can we assume your education and degree mean nothing – or as little as Obama’s JD? I guess you’re little more than the paper boy youy were when you were twelve…
How can an agenda that is “unexceptional in its parts” require the setting of priorities? Simply because of size. Brooks’ criticism is a perfect statement of the “me too, but smaller” Republican response.
Some of the “parts” include taxing the less educated to pay for college for those who will end up making more moneyh, a inflicting a carbon tax to stop the global warming that hasn’t been happening for the last 9 years.
I think Brooks is looking at the stated aims (which usually are unexceptional for any policy) instead of the means (where both the practicality and the morality of policy lie).
Here’s my angry question for all these “conservatives” who are shell-shocked just 30 something days into this mess whining now that he’s not the man you thought he was: What, given this man’s background and slim voting record, made you think he would ever be anything other than what he’s now revealing himself to be? All politicians are smooth talkers. All move to the center. With your elite, intellectual minds, did you all really believe the crap that poured forth??? You all chose to be sheep and you have no sympathy from me. As Victor Klemperer felt about all his fellow intellectuals in Germany who acquiesced to Hitler’s tactics, you deserve, more than anyone else, to share the biggest sorrow, pain and hell that’s coming down the road.
Roger Simon’s new Politico column, “What did you expect?”, is a good answer to Brooks.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19534.html
To summarize.
Obama is bold and transformational, and he is only doing what he promised.
The only people surprised are the people who weren’t paying attention to the campaign.
Republicans have no answer. Only the sort of over-the-top demonizing rhetoric that reveals them to be unhinged partisans and destroys their credibility.
“So here we have two systems,” Limbaugh said. “We have socialism, collectivism, Stalin, whatever you want to call it, versus capitalism.”
“And that’s it. Obama and the Democrats represent Stalin, and Limbaugh and the Republicans represent capitalism. Take your pick.
“But doesn’t it make you kind of wonder why the American people picked Obama and the Democrats last November?
“How did that happen, exactly? Was it mass hypnosis? Were we bewitched?
“Or were we just tired of the endless hyperpartisanship, the endless name calling, the endless demonizing of the opposition to “energize the base” and the endless refusal to develop real solutions to real problems? “
#7 gee, lab, i guess you aren’t one of those ‘compassionate conservatives’…
as for me, i lost a bet: i thought it would take til AFTER the first 100 days for barack obama to lose the ‘conservatives’ his ‘charm,’ ‘temperament,’ intelligence and rhetoric had fooled….
i mean, ‘persuaded’….
Here’s your top earmarkers for FY2009. Congratulations to the party of fiscal responsibility for holding its own.
1. Byrd – $122,804,900
2. Shelby – $114,484,250
3. Bond – $85,691,491
4. Feinstein $76,899,425
5. Cochran – $75,908,475
6. Murkowski – $74,000,750
7. Harkin – $66,860,000
8. Inhofe – $53,133,500
9. McConnell – $51,186,000
10. Inouye – $46,380,205
ht Glenn Thrush
The best thing about Buckley & Brooks coming out like this?
It means we have examples for the NEXT time the “moderates” want to sell us on the merits of RINOs, or even worse, liberal Democrats.
But no, the problem really is with Rush Limbaugh and those crazy conservatives who *actually believe* what they say and write.
I’m a believer in moderation. Politics is politics, and you have to horsetrade some things in order to get what you want.
But conservatives WILL. NOT. WIN. if they continue to allow the Republican Party to be defined as Democrats without cool people.
Listen to Rush. Listen to Newt. Listen to the folks who have been there before, who’ve seen Democrats come along and promise the center and instead deliver the Left-wing shopping list.
We were warned, David Brooks. YOU were warned.
Feh.
Brooks and Buckley Jr. are irrelevant.
I think people might be overstating Obama’s liberalism. Obama doesn’t have a genuine philosophy of governance or a commitment to anything but his own election and adulation. Liberals, usually, are not pro-death penalty, but Obama is. Liberals, usually, do not oppose GLBT civil rights, but Obama does. Liberals, usually, do not want to muck around with social security, but Obama does. I am a liberal and I did not vote for Obama b/c he was not liberal enough. His budget has some things that, as a liberal, I like. But his overall attitude toward the poor is condescending; his blame game for people in mortgage trouble is disgusting. Anyway, I am glad the honeymoon is over. Maybe without all the glorification, he’ll get down to business instead of flying off to Denver, site of the Obamacropolis, for symbolic signing of bills.
And I’d add so are Frum, Noonan, and all the rest of the media’s favorite RINOs.
They have shown themselves to be fools.
Brooks was willing to put out on the first date. Obama wouldn’t spend the night afterward and hasn’t called him since. Brooks is afraid the answer to “will you respect me in the morning” has been answered in the negative and so he’s pouting. But a little “gesture, however small, however costless” can win him back. Obama can send him some roses and all will be forgiven.
Just as Castro can’t enslave Cuba by personally walking around the island scaring people into submission with his AK-47, BHO can’t and didn’t foist this spending disaster on the U.S. We can look at him as the source of all evil, but he’s just a facilitator. It’s the congress, at bottom, that’s the agency of destruction. The staffs of utopian representatives and senators were given a literal blank check to attach their highest profile projects to this “stimulus”. Republicans, as you may recall, weren’t invited to help write the bill. These utopians know full well that with an unpredictable future now is the time to get while the getting is good. Passing on a crime museum for Las Vegas might mean that such an essential part of the Nevada infrastructure might never be built. Obama might not be good but Congress is bad.
Conservatives of all stripes emphasize personal responsibility. So, you know what would be a classy, responsible thing for Brooks and Buckley to actually write?
I was wrong and Rush got it right.
Do you think moderate, elitist conservatives could actually confront that reality?
Brooks and Buckley are supposed to be professional political prognosticators, caught swooning over the worse-than-empty rhetoric of BHO, and only NOW discover that he might not be the Messianic character of first rate intellect, etc., etc. that they thought.
Is it too much to ask of them to fall upon their political swords for us – those who took a peak behind the Wizard’s curtain during the campaign and saw the future president for the humbug he is proving to be?
That Brooks had any confidence in Obama is a sharp indictment of Brooks and his judgement. And to call Buckley and Brooks “conservative” is an insult to all true fiscal and social conservatives.
laugh of the morning!
Brooks: “I consider myself a moderate-conservative” SNicker.
No, David, you are a fool, and you’ve been played like a fool.
Brooks is so pitiful. Now he’s calling for the “moderates” to rise up against Number One. Good luck with that.
Number One must be chuckling — as only he can chuckle — over this whimpy column from Brooks. Like any good hard Leftist, who not only knows that he must hide his true beliefs but also enjoys doing so, Number One will blithely go about his way, undeterred by Brooks’s call for “moderate action.” Or, rather, being the good politician that he is, Number One will take Brooks’s criticism of Limbaugh and use it to prove the he, Number One, is still the savior.
Next week, Brooks will have a column in which he reflects on his earlier — read “last week” — views on Number One and conclude that there’s wisdom in going along. Or some such. Afterall, he’s got to write something to fill those columns.
Jeff 15: “Brooks was willing to put out on the first date.”
Wonderful post. I would have no complaints with it at all if it hadn’t made me laugh my morning coffee through my nose. Ouch!
Ah! Neocomrades Collins and Specter and Snowe, plus now Señorito Brooks, makes four.
I suppose they can play bridge while waitin’ for forty million other extreme moderates to show up and bring the _Zentrum_ to power.
Happy days.
oh, I suppose Obama is terribly sad… inconsolable.
This is the best example of a “useful idiot” (by Lenin) is. And the so-called “moderate conservative” movement is full of them.
What have the useful idiots learned about Obama in less than 2 MONTHS after he was sworn in office that these brilliant minds could not gather before?
Give me a break.
“Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was.”
Better late than never, I suppose, but it is so pathetic that anyone could have fallen the arrogant, blatantly ill-informed, and doctrinaire likes of Barack Obama. Guess it must have been that “temperament” thing. And how is that working out?
Do you know how to tell Obama is telling a lie?
His lips are moving.
nyuck, nyuck
My brother called me the day after the election to ask who I voted for. We usually don’t talk politics…But my brother was conflicted. He should have called BEFORE the election, oh well.
In any event, he voted for Obama. Here was his rationale: “I like what Obama was saying, but I feel like he’s a liar. All politicians are liars, but he seems like big one. But I like what he’s saying. McCain is probably the most honest of all politicians, but I just don’t like what he’s saying.”
Yes. My brother actually said that. He voted for the liar who told him what he wanted to here rather than the honest guy who was talking the ugly truth. Once I put it that way my brother said he made a mistake. I am thinking this mea culpa of Brooks is along similar lines. The level to which people were willing to “hope” he was a moderate and would do what he said rather than do what he has always done is astounding.
I take no pleasure in reading of Brooks recantation. In fact, while Obama lost Brooks, Brooks lost me several years ago.
My wife made me watch ‘the Bachelor’ last night.
I hope that doesn’t get e banned from this august forum.
Anyhow, for anyone who saw it, the weak, sniveling bachelor made a mess of things with his uncertain and vacillating ‘love’ for his choice of bride, a love he retracted, on national television, saying ‘I made a mistake – I really love the other one’.
What an ‘effin pathetic performance.
I suspect we will be seeing more of these as time goes on.
Too late for us all.
There goes the midterms
Michael, my wife tried to get me to watch also, but I flatly REFUSED, poured myself a martini and played Monopoly with my 10 year old daughter (she put a whooping on me, too!). When my wife and other daughters were in the throes of disgust over whatever transgression of the Judeo-Christian ethic occurred on that program (surprise, surprise) they apologized for having even watched it.
What transpires on television shows such as The Bachelor gives great insight into the mindset of Obama worshippers. The twisting and contorting of values for the sake of entertainment, the commercialization of voyeurism, I could go on and on. And don’t get me going on Extreme Home Makeover…
One thing about the disenchanted “moderate-conservatives”: their lack of support to Obama now is IRRELEVANT. He IS already IN office. He doesn’t need the “deaf-mutes” of the other side to grant him the status of a responsible and reliable leader. He doesn’t need Buckley to embrace his “able pen”.
The useful idiots (or deaf-mutes as Lenin would have it) have already done their jobs, they are now utterly disposable to Obama and his purposes.
There is a huge asymmetry between their support (which stirred the liberal media) and their deception, which will only be noted by these conservative bigots and no one else….
Dear David Brooks: His [Obama's]. Words. Are. Not. Responsible. By your own description. These guys are still not connecting the dots in their own heads with their own writing in front of them.
Poor David – and moderate conservatives are so hard to fool.
It is indeed terrifying and radical to have a position on health care that is way to the right of Harry Truman, or propose bringing the top tax rates to what are, by U.S. historical standards, very low top rates.
This was always going to be Brooks’s schtick. Obama’s administration is perhaps a bit to the left of Clinton’s, though far to the right of LBJ or Nixon or Truman on domestic policy. On foreign policy (continuing most of Bush’s policies) or Wall Street (Geithner’s dithering around bank nationalization) it’s essentially a center-right administration. But the point is not to evaluate these standard moderate Democrat health-care and taxation policies; the point is for Brooks to show off his bona fides as a “moderate.”
Brooks is, as I’m sure left and right can both agree, useless because he defines “moderate” as being in between the Democrats and Republicans, and has no useful ideas of his own. At least Limbaugh has ideas that he believes in: cutting taxes, rolling back the New Deal, decrying all programs that promote freedom for non-rich people as “socialism.” Give me that over Brooks, who has no idea what he believes.
As far as Chris Buckley, David Brooks and other ex-Obama worshipping conservatives all I can say is Head Like A Hole by Nine Inch Nails comes to mind, “Bow down before the ones you serve/ you’re gonna get what you deserve..”
Hey Turfmann, as for Extreme Home Makeover, the next time I hear Ty declare the little girl’s bedroom his own private project I’m calling the authorities!!
I think the surprise, surprise is understandible. First thing after the election 0 rolls out his “advisors,” including Robert Rubin (Jennifer’s Uncle?), Rham Emanuel (supposedly tough but ‘realistic’), and Larry Summers.
Summers is supposedly Mister pragmatist, right?
“Commentary” should explore the Summers angle in depth.
Is he a prop?
Has he been compromised by his own Monica Lewinsky?
What’s up with Larry?
37 maddaddyssa…
Indeed, EHM strikes me as liberalism run amuck. Some poor family that has to bear some incomprehensible burden is offered up for our entertainment. Off on a fairy tail vacation, smash down the house, rebuild it in mere hours instead of months, fill it full of doodads and trinkets till it looks like a set at Disney (wait, it IS a set at Disney!) then yell “Move That Bus!”, cry, sob, reflect upon the unfairness that has been cast from their midst by the benevolence of Sears, etc. Life is FAIR again! And it was FREE! And someone else did the WORK! The masses wipe away their tears, too, then look around and ask themselves why they can’t have Ty show up at their house for a week, why they can’t go on vacation…
And then conservatives wonder why so very many Americans voted for Obama.
Barack Obama is EHM made flesh.
Except that life is not fair, things are not free, and too often you work your ass off and very little comes of it. That so many people fail to recognize these facts does not diminish their truth.
What Obama and his kind (throughout history) fail to consider is HUMAN NATURE. They have the part right where people will take someting if it’s free. The part they fail to consider is those who produce soon figure out it’s not to their benefit to work very hard. They get the same reward for hard work as they get for just showing up. When the hard workers and the ingenious ones stop doing their thing, the ones who take the free stuff will run out of free stuff. It’s the ant and the grasshopper, or it’s Animal Farm all over again — and the socialists never learn.
J Rowland at #27 — your brother’s comment reminds me to mention that we need to restrict the franchise. Too many people get to vote. Back in the days when only property owners who paid taxes had the vote, how many of them do you think voted on the principle expounded by Rowland Frere, and then exclaimed “Oops!” afterward?
Here’s my thinking. If your name is on a real property deed — one you pay taxes on — and/or on an income tax return (AND you pay net taxes), you vote. Filers who pay no net income tax do not vote. If you qualified in at least one of those categories for a minimum of 20 years, but no longer do, you vote. If you are on active duty in the military, or serving as a policeman or fireman, you vote, even if you are not a net payer of income tax. Veterans of military and emergency worker service vote for life, if they served at least 4 years.
And yes. You need a government-issued ID to vote. One that verifies your voter qualification(s).
metalman, there is one other thing that the producers will do (are doing)…
*shrug*
Just like Orwell, Rand was right.
Palin was the center. It is radical agendas that reflects off of and curves the center. The center then looks extreme because it reacted in defence. The radicals want to change everything they can conceive, such is narcissism. Anyone opposed is marginalized quickly, no room for truth in the realm of compulsive feelings. Madame Clinton said yesterday, Isreal must hurry towards agreement there’s only a shot time left. They sell the apocalypse, that is how they make their money.
Obama and Rush should sit down and talk it out.
Gee, Brooks and Buckley. The new communism looks just like the old communism.
41
J.E. Dyer
Heinlein, almost.
The TV references are very entertaining (though, normally, one of the great advantages of being an everyday bachelor rather than a TV bachelor is not having to be more than vaguely aware of THE BACHELOR). Anyway, I need to reach further back for mine: The image of Brooks leading a brigade of riled-up moderates – er (shhhh) conservative moderates – makes me think of Ken Berry leading F TROOP.
Where Indian fights are colorful sights
and nobody takes a lickin’
Where pale face and redskin
Both turn chicken.
I am starting to think that Obama does not want to be the next Lincoln, or even FDR, but rather the next Mugabe or Chavez. Can the elimination of term limits be far behind?
Brooks was enthralled by that academic discussion over Reinhold Niebuhr. He should have fccused on a real world discussion about how a seemingly intelligent man could listen to Jeremiah Wright’s BS for 20 years.
vb # 48…so true. There was ample evidence ignored by Brooks and his ilk of the “real” Obama, while they were falling all over themselves to commend his oratorical skills. He, and every other person who didn’t sound the obvious alarms on this radical socialist should spare us their whining now.
“The only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently unfit to wield it.”
David Brooks is an idiot. He was conned by the biggest con of them all and instead of taking responsibility that he was conned he, along with David Frum, continue to place blame on the Republican Party and conservatives like Rush Limbaugh. These cowards have no voice but the shrills of capitulation. They really need to be kicked to the curb.
But, hey, at least Sarah Palin is not a heartbeat away from the presidency, right?
Yea, who here thinks that Sarah Palin would have spent the last 6 weeks wandering America, sunk in gloom, bemoaning the economy and despairing of recovery. The clown in chief just came out and admitted that he’s not worried about the market, {which means he’s completely unconcerned about retirement savings, college education accounts, the ordinary nest eggs that Americans have been slowly building up for most of their lives!}.
What did we expect though when the guy spent 20 plus years listening to Wright decry caucasians, and blame every single problem under the sun on white people, {“white folks’ greed fuels a world in need!”}. He spent 20 plus years listening to some racist son-of-a-b**ch!
Mr Brooks,
The marsh-mellow milk-toast middle moderate Republicans got everything they wanted in this past election, they got the god of republican “reaching accross the aisle” Mc-Dole, excuse me McCain. Mr. Brooks that style of Rebuplicanism got its collective clock cleaned, and without Palin it would have been a landslide. The party is suffering right now because we are suffering form 8 years of “compassionate conservitive” big government moderate Republicanism. You distain the Limbaughs but they have core beliefs and are not easily fooled my smooth talking politicians. If you had some core beliefs you would not be writing an apology.
You “moderates” were sold a bill of goods by the snake oil salesman of the century. In four years he’ll be back currying favor with you and you’ll swallow the whole bait again. Now all of a sudden, you just didnt know Obama, but, you knew he was a snake when you picked him up and now he’s bitten you. You reap what you sow. Unfortunately, generations to come will be paying for it.
Chris Bolts: No, but Slo Joe Biden is, and THAT is scary. Anybody know the website number? Heh.
David Brooks (whoever he is,) finally realizes that Obama is the lifelong radical he always was. Brilliant observation. I’m glad Commentary pointed it out though, because now I know to avoid reading anything that clueless boob writes.
Not that the writers at Commentary have been much more realistic about our Messiah. I long ago lost count of the times I read about how talented and brilliant the woefully incompetent Obama was supposed to be. You people are only now beginning to realize he has no idea what he’s doing as President, and neither does the bloated team of “extremely intelligent experts” he’s assembled.
Only intellectuals can be this stupid.