Never Knowingly Coherent

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate David Brooks?

[L]et me describe what moderation is not. It is not just finding the midpoint between two opposing poles and opportunistically planting yourself there. Only people who know nothing about moderation think it means that.

Certainly no-one who watched Brooks snipe at Mitt Romney for months before he became the Republican candidate and suddenly all cuddly and centrist and wonderful could think the man opportunistic.  But what then is moderation?

For a certain sort of conservative, tax cuts and smaller government are always the answer, no matter what the situation. For a certain sort of liberal, tax increases for the rich and more government programs are always the answer.

The moderate does not believe that there are policies that are permanently right. Situations matter most. Tax cuts might be right one decade but wrong the next. Tighter regulations might be right one decade, but if sclerosis sets in then deregulation might be in order.

Got that?  Only fools think moderates just kick around in the gap between two endpoints.  But if we just replace those poles with ludicrous caricatures of those poles, then that bisection is exactly what the moderates are gonna get up to. How moderate!

Also, has any liberal anywhere, ever, gotten to the end of demanding all circumstances call for more taxes and more government programs without someone cutting their microphone and laughing them out of the building?  There's a pretty massive tell here, and its that Brooks definition of a moderate requires him to slam a brand of liberal that doesn't exist in any important sense, and slam a brand of conservative that includes damn near the entire heirarchy of one political party and the vice presidential candidate of the guy he's currently supporting.

C'mon, Davey. You might as well hitch your wagon to a gaggle of unrepentant misogynists because although you don't like all that women-hating, it's not like the Wicked Witch of the West was any better.

Of course, you know what's coming: Brooks has hitched his wagon to a gaggle of unrepentant misogynists.  Not, one presumes out of a fear of witchcraft, but just because he's an asshole.

(Speaking of which, this is brilliant.)