David Cowles

Such goes the nauseatingly titled

The Courtship

The story behind the Obama-Brooks bromance.
from the New Republic. It’s proof that the Villagers (or as Lambert calls them, Versailles) have never been more brazen in their disdain of the people. Not since Scalia uttered at Princeton in 2001
“Maybe the Constitution is there to protect us from the will of the people”
had I heard a more clear manifesto.
Unless I go back to  Bush’s imperial historian, ironically also chronicled by TNR, which notes the shift from white supremacy
Pigmentation–the old basis for dominance–is now discredited, so he has politely switched to linguistics.”
It’s a class thing, you see. Brooks first good impression of Obama was in 2003
That first encounter is still vivid in Brooks’s mind. “I remember distinctly an image of–we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant,” Brooks says, “and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”
And  the perfect crease in Obama’s pant did earn him mostly favorable coverage from Brooks – with the notable exception of the wickedly funny column after the stadium speech ,
For this election isn’t about the past or the present, or even the pluperfect conditional. It’s about the future, and Barack Obama loves the future because that’s where all his accomplishments are.
and the one quote in which he reveals himself
We were moved by his campaign slogan, “Vote Obama: He’s better than you’ll ever be.
Which is really the point of David Brooks. As TNR obligingly puts it
Moreover, after the Bush years, Brooks seems relieved to have an intellectual in the White House again
Which would mean something if Brooks – would have complained – just one single time about Bush’s lack of intellectualism. He didn’t, but  surely gave it to Sarah Palin – whom he called “a cancer on the Republican party”
And it all makes sense as he sees the world
“I divide people into people who talk like us and who don’t talk like us,”
and, mind you, Rhodes Scholar Clinton, didn’t quite make it
“Of recent presidents, Clinton could sort of talk like us, but Obama is definitely–you could see him as a New Republic writer.
Which tells me that it’s not really about intellectualism, but about that perfect crease in the pants. W probably had it, but poor Sarah, lacked the pants to begin with. And Bill Clinton was never  considered as part of Versailles – for the good reason that he didn’t want to be one of them. he was one of us, the messy creased/no pants.
And how appropriate that David Brooks’ utmost distinction for Obama was “a TNR writer”
For the past year, TNR regaled us with a slew of gloating articles such as

“Hey, Nutroots, you lost!”

before indulging in finding common ground with the likes of David Brooks.
Indeed, it must be wonderful this time a year up there.
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