Bursting Point: Brooks, Oliphant, Page in best discussion of the events

[Bernardo de La Paz]

Paraphrases and quotes of the discussion with Brooks, Oliphant, and Clarence Page. Catch this on tape delay or rebroadcast if you can. For example, the SF Bay area can get it tonight on KTEH News Hour with Jim Lehrer at 11:00, with the panel at about 11:35. Look for some intereting columns by Brooks soon:

Populism will be transcendent for a while.

Brooks: Expose basic fault lines in American society. "You take care of the poor first. That didn't happen. It's like leaving the wounded on the battlefield." Quotes blogosphere: "This is the anti-911".

Page: "We have seen the National agenda shift to the domestic side." "More than a decade after Hurricane Andrew shook up Bush 1."

Brooks made a great series of points that events like this expose the reality of how the rich have been taking care of themselves at the expense of the poor and can be the bursting point that leads to changes on the scale of the New Deal. Drew the analogy of the Johnstown flood where a lake owned by robber barons including Andrew Carnegie burst and was part of the impetus for the progressive reforms at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Analogy of the 1927 New Orleans flood made calls for the involvement of government in disaster relief that helped usher in the New Deal. Analogy of the 70s that people just wanted to be over which helped usher Reagan in. This is more like the 20s when Republicans were in power.

Brooks: "Delegitimation of our institutions:" intelligence scandals, corporate scandals, mentioned several other scandals. Feels like the 70s now, let's get out of this mess.

Oliphant: Three more shocks to come: 1) Body count, 2) The Bill, 3) Impact with immense national implications.

Page: Has Department of Homeland Security improved matters? No.

Oliphant: Bush is emblematic of what's going on, for years. Government has failed.

Brooks: Public confidence, no public presence, no Guliani. Failure of Bush to realize. Three days of Bush doing nothing is wrong. Brooks is very angry at Bush.

Page: American shame. These images are going out to the world. "If we can't take care of the least of these, how well can we take care of ourselves".

Brooks: This is not a tipping point it is a bursting point. Guiliani couldn't have gotten on a primary last week. Today he would win in a walk. You will see people like John Edwards talking about poverty again, which they haven't been lately.

[Burried News]

1. It was a very very good session. Brooks is a Bush supporter

but he said watching him the last two days was infuriating and he now knows how Mark Shields feels most of the time.
There was no bluster or rankor. There was a purity, a truth, a wisdom rarely evident on Television.

All three used the word 'ashamed'.

Thanks for posting.

[longship]

2. Love Oliphant.

I'll have to snag this off the PBS Web site.

[LibertyorDeath]

5. Thanks

Realplayer Real Audio
http://audio.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2005/09/02/20050902_bop28.rm?altplay=20050902_bop28.rm

[BootinUp]

3. Its available at pbs website

Thanks for the heads up, sounds very interesting.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Found the NewsHour with JL link to the discussion with transcript

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/bop_9-2.html