Glenn Greenwald: David Brooks and the deceitful tactics of the Beltway pundit

[babylonsister]

David Brooks and the deceitful tactics of the Beltway pundit
Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday September 25, 2007 06:37 EST
David Brooks and the deceitful tactics of the Beltway pundit

(updated below)

As I've noted many times before, virtually every column David Brooks writes is grounded in one of two highly misleading tactics and, on special occasions, like today, are grounded in both. That's all there is to him. He just re-cycles these same two themes over and over in different forms.

The first tactic is merely the most commonplace conceit of the standard Beltway pundit: Brooks takes whatever opinions he happens to hold on a topic, and then -- without citing a single piece of evidence -- repeatedly asserts that "most Americans" hold this view, and then bases his entire "argument" on this premise. Thus, the only way for Democrats to have any hope of winning elections is to repudiate their radical, rabid Leftist base and instead follow Brooks' beliefs, because that is "centrism." This is actually a defining belief of the Beltway pundit, and it is as intellectually corrupt as an argument gets.

There is now this new invention called "polling data" which reveal what "most Americans" actually think about virtually any topic. Yet when Beltway pundits claim that "most Americans" think X (and, invariably, X = "the opinion of the Beltway pundit" which = "conventional Beltway wisdom"), they rarely cite polls because those polls virtually always contradict what they are claiming about what "most Americans" think.

Instead, Beltway pundits believe that they are representative of, anointed spokespeople for, the Average Real American, and thus, whatever the pundit's belief is about an issue is -- in their insular, self-loving minds -- a far more reliable indicator of what "Americans believe" than something as tawdry as polling data. Nobody uses this manipulative tactic more than David Brooks.

more...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/25/brooks/

[illinoisprogressive]

1. Yeah, Brooks wants us to embrace the neocon foreign policy ideas of Clinton and the DLC

[babylonsister]

3. He's not talking to 'us'. nt

[monktonman]

2. Now that you mention it....

I can remember hearing him say that "most Americans believe"
bullshit almost everytime I see him.
Used to watch McNeil-Leher news hour alot and he was a frequent
guest and I swear that almost everytime he was on that show he would use that line.

Thanks for pointing this out. I always thought he was a dick
so this just adds to my feelings of dickness.