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As best as I can tell, New York Times columnist David Brooks is a well-connected pundit. Powerful people return his phone calls, and when he wants information from top governmental offices, Brooks tends to get it.
And with this in mind, it's puzzling that Brooks based his entire column today on an easily-checked error. The conservative pundit insists President Obama "declines to come up with a proposal to address" next week's sequester mess, adding, "The president hasn't actually come up with a proposal to avert sequestration."
I'll never understand how conservative media personalities get factual claims like this so very wrong. If Brooks doesn't like Obama's sequester alternative, fine; he can write a column explaining his concerns. But why pretend the president's detailed, already published plan, built on mutual concessions from both sides, doesn't exist? If you're David Brooks, why don't you just pick up the phone, call the West Wing, and say, "Do you folks have a proposal to address the sequester or not?" I'm certain an administration official would help him by sending him exactly what he's looking for, and then he wouldn't have to publish claims that are demonstrably wrong.
In the larger context, Brooks' deeply unfortunate error is symptomatic of a larger problem: as sequestration approaches, we're stuck in a debate in which facts seem to have very little meaning.
"President Obama has said that unless he gets a second tax hike in eight weeks, he will be forced to let criminals loose on the streets, the meat at your grocery store won't be inspected and emergency responders will be unable to do their jobs," [House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.)] said in his statement.
"These are false choices. We are faced with the negative effects of the sequester because Democrats have not been able to take even the smallest step towards controlling spending."
Why lie like this? Cantor surely knows that President Obama has already accepted over $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. Cantor surely knows over $2.4 trillion in debt reduction has already happened. Cantor surely knows the deficit has nearly been cut in half over the last four years. Cantor surely knows Obama has offered to accept another $600 billion in spending cuts as part of a sequester compromise. So why put out a statement based on claims that aren't true?
The country is facing a real threat next week and there's room a worthwhile debate, but it's important for the public to understand that a constructive discussion is impossible when there's no shared basis for reality.
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Brooks is no longer important and as a NYT columnist he's only one of a dozen NYT columnists who regularly get their facts wrong. Joe Romm, ThinkProgress Climate Blog, had one the other day where NYT columnist Nocera had gotten the facts backwards as well.
The NYT thinks it is important as a "paper of record" but I won't pay for it - it has so many factual errors and so many columnists who promote their personal opinions as facts. Friedman and the Iraq War as well as reporters from the Times who got their facts wrong, and purposefully.
Rachel's article preceding this one where she reports that 94% of US citizens are getting the deficit wrong is the best example. We're a country of morons and that's what Brooks knows so he exploits this. Their only shining example of truth is Paul Krugman, but he's not enough.
I'm with you. David Brooks has long been little more than a journalistic hack. His faux-logic and poorly conceived ideas have branded him as a conservative tool. If he's the best that side has, they're in big trouble.
Why he gets so much respect from those on the left is utterly beyond me. He has long since stopped earning that respect.
The GOP learned as far back as Joe McCarthy that truth is absolutely not a necessity in the swaying of minds and votes. GOP leaders for 50 years have been creating crises and providing an alternate reality for those looking for someone to blame for real or imagined ills. Nixon declared a state of economic emergency using inflation and a postal strike (huh?) to impose wage and price controls and to remove us from the Gold Standard. Reagan blathered on about evil empires and "Welfare Queens" driving Cadillac's after kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi famous only for Klan murders of civil rights workers. Bush deux hyped us into war, tax cuts for the wealthiest, outed a CIA agent, airbrushed torture and defamed opposition leaders using radical internet, cable and radio outlets to fabricate a moral and economic reality in complete opposition to what was occurring. They are so used to substituting apocryphal tales for reality that I am unsure many any longer know the difference.
jkh
Part of the blame for the "he said, she said" atmosphere rests with the White House. When I am trying to push through an idea, first I speak with people. If I'm not persuasive and the idea is not "self-evident", then I seek to inform. I produce facts within a context to prove my point, along with a timeline to show the history of the debate and what possible responses and consequences might be. Eventually, if the argument is sound and the facts understood and accepted, the idea goes through.
So why doesn't the President or White House produce a Perot-style, "Frontline"-type educational televised event to walk the country through all the fiscal budget issues - who said what and when - and EXPLAIN the direction/plan they have? At least there would be indisputable evidence of what the plan is. If David Brooks or any other nimrod wants to claim otherwise, simply refer them back to the program. We're not stupid - so each side should stop simply trying to shout louder than the other and start laying out their argument is a format that we all understand.
Or not.....
At least many of the comments on Brooks' editorial posted online refute him. He's a total idiot.
I wonder what should anyone expect..... From one view point...You knew when you cast a vote for reelection that Pres. Obama's hands would be tied...for 4 more years...but you voted having full knowledge of 4 years of prior discourse and gridlock. I don't understand how peoples expectations could be so much higher than base realities, past and present. Politics at the national level is a real life game. Our votes counted... and the game continues...
WTF are you trying to say?
Why not set-up a system, that levies fines for openly
reporting falsehoods? This should also,
be implemented for political ads. It
works for commercials run by drug companies, we need a disincentive for falsehoods. This would not impact opinions since opinions
could be identified as such, OPINIONS not FACT.
Why not set-up a system, that levies fines for openly
reporting falsehoods? This should also,
be implemented for political ads. It
works for commercials run by drug companies, we need a disincentive for falsehoods. This would not impact opinions since opinions
could be identified as such, OPINIONS not FACT.
I learned at a young age that you cannot debate with people who change the facts...how would it be to debate someone who changes them in the same discussion. This is crazy making stuff.
Why not set-up a system, that levies fines for openly
reporting falsehoods? This should also,
be implemented for political ads. It
works for commercials run by drug companies, we need a disincentive for
falsehoods. This would not impact
opinions since opinions could be identified as such, OPINIONS not FACT.
Idiots like Cantor say what they do because no one but Faux News listens. When was the last time a Repuglycant said anything truthful or of importance in the past 13 years???
I cannot stand to read Brooks" editorials. He lies by commission and omission. He belongs on the editorial page of the WSJ not the NYT. I got so sick of Brooks on PBS" Newshour that I stopped watching it years ago and I still don't watch news on PBS. It was such a perfect example of "some say the world is flat" journamalism. It made me realize the PBS I knew is long gone.
Barack Obama "I will veto any attempt to avoid sequestration". If we want to talk about facts, let's address the President lying about whose idea Sequestration was. And those words does not make it sound like he is willing to compromise.
Video is such damning evidence. Well, except when MSNBC edits it and then tells no one they did.