Glenn Greenwald's column today, highlighting the High Wankerdom of David Brooks, is as good an entry point as any for a discussion of the dishonest, corrupt nature of much of our elite discourse. In the piece, Greenwald highlights two tactics of Brooks, tactics that are not specific to him, but of which he is certainly the High Priest: (a) claim that the views that he has are in fact the views of "most Americans", or even, on occasion, "Americans" when in fact the views he espouses are the exact opposite of the majority of Americans; (b) insist his views are "centrist", beyond the babble and burble and ballyhoo (with apologies to King Crimson) of politics, when in fact they are quite right of center.
The second tactic in particular is a way of shutting down debate on an issue by insisting that such "centrist" views incorporate the best of both "right" and "left", when in fact they are highly dubious assertions from the right, and need to be debated vigorously. Yet, there are few things our pundit class - those gatekeepers of our national political dialogue - detest more than the hoi polloi holding strong political opinions, debating them, sometimes loudly, occasionally profanely, outside the control of our self-appointed referees. It seems odd that these men and women, who must love politics enough to spend their lives and earn their filthy lucre thinking and writing about politics would be surprised and even offended by the strong expression of opinion. Yet, precisely because the field upon which they play seems, to them, to be the main field, the other, lesser fields - coffee shops, the dinner table, and worst of all, blogs - are strange, foreign places of little consequence. I do believe this is why pundits in general, and Brooks in particular, are fact-free in their assertion of what it is "most Americans" (I especially love his heinous description of "Midwest high school graduates" - how condescending can one get?) think - as "most Americans" do not in fact live and work in and around oxygen-deprived Washington, DC, there is little reason to consider what it is they think and feel. The assertion that "most Americans" think and believe something by a member of the blabbing class is True because it comes from a place of deep, honest thought.
Brooks is no more interested in what Americans think than are the members of Congress who continue to act as if the American public had not voted last November to end this horrid war, to be a counter-weight to the President, and to start the difficult work of rebuilding our civil and constitutional infrastructure (as well as our physical infrastructure, we might as well add).
I do believe that, until the current crop of Republicans is replaced - and if this report by David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo is accurate, there may be some hope yet - we are in for much too much nonsense such as last week's condemnation of MoveOn, and today's debate on the Lieberman-Kyl Amendment. Only by showing the overwhelming unpopularity of the Republicans, Bush, and their war through a massive vote of no-confidence (i.e., tossing them out of office en masse) may we be able to move beyond our current situation.
Of course, this doesn't mean our pundits will be any more intellectually honest. It just means there might be a bit more evidence beyond mere poll numbers that can be used to show just how ridiculous and out of touch our punditry is.
Virtual Tin Cup
