David Brooks has a ghost writer?

David Brooks has me worried. His column today in the NY Times appears to be an effort to have his access badge re-issued after recent critiques of the President.

This whole “you’re in you’re out” theory about Afghanistan is absurd, David. Either that or you have a ghost writer.

I like David Brooks’ perspectives very much. I read his columns (Tue and Fri) and know I don’t have a life. He appears on Charlie Rose often and David has a pleasant way of telling you your fly needs adjusting without embarrassing you. He doesn’t yell, or get grumpy. He does blink a great deal when he has to listen to a grumpy loud person. He talks sense but in his column today, it didn’t sound like David at all.

His call to honor McChrystal’s troop request is just another guilt-trip, tie a yellow ribbon, support-the-troops-or-you’re-off-the-patriot-list argument. Lame and very shallow. Hence my inkling that David has a ghost writer today. This not a piece of wisdom from the “Mr. Edmund Burke-Lives!” I admire.

Burke said a lot of cool and very complicated stuff. Always bad to boil down a lifetime of writing and speeches, but here goes: The World is big and complicated…


This isn’t my boiled down Burke broth. It’s David’s. He’s always channeling Burke like some people channel their favorite guitarist while playing guitar hero? (Who’s your favorite?)…

So, this non-Burke-ian column from Brooks seems to argue that Afghanistan is some primary central front in the war of the worlds. I don’t agree and it’s very apparent that others will not buy this line either. The central conflict front is Palestine, Israel, the Holy Land, the Holy City, whatever you want to call the place.

Fire that ghost writer, David. Read Edmund Burke over the weekend. Barack likes you…your access badge is in the mail. Please come back!