David Brooks

PBS/NPR 'Conservative' David Brooks: 'President Obama Was Right' on Bergdahl Swap
By Tim Graham | June 6, 2014 | 11:19 AM EDT

For most of this week, the front page of The New York Times has been trying to dig out Team Obama on the Bowe Bergdahl scandal. So it might be unsurprising that pseudo-conservative Times columnist David Brooks is echoing his "objective" colleagues in a Friday column simply titled "President Obama Was Right."

This isn't just a blatantly baked spin blossom for the Times. It might naturally spur Brooks to be asked to "complete the thought" about Obama being correct on his Friday "week in review" platforms on NPR's All Things Considered and the PBS NewsHour.

PBS Analyst Mark Shields: House Benghazi Hearings 'Will Be A Disaster'
By Tim Graham | May 13, 2014 | 7:18 AM EDT

PBS NewsHour analyst Mark Shields started with an admission on Benghazi on Friday night: “Has the White House been transparent? Absolutely not.”

But he lamented that the House special committee hearings “will be a disaster. It won’t be good for the country.” It’s only being done for the Tea Party and Fox News. Apparently, hearings are only productive and wonderful when run by liberal Democrats like Henry Waxman:

Salon: New York Times Opinion Section Is Insufficiently Liberal
By Tom Johnson | April 23, 2014 | 11:13 PM EDT

Common-ground alert: Salon's Alex Pareene doesn't think much of the New York Times's opinion columnists as a group, and neither, presumably, do NewsBusters readers. As for the reasons why, well, let's just say most of Pareene's almost certainly aren't the same as yours. 

Pareene blasts Maureen Dowd for "sloppiness, not to mention rote repetition of themes and jokes and incredibly lazy thinking" and skewers Nick Kristof for his alleged "do-gooder liberalism [which] involves the bizarre American conviction that bombing places is a great way to help them." He likes Thomas Friedman even less, writing that Friedman "is an embarrassment" who "writes stupid things, for stupid people, about complicated topics" and "dutifully pushes a stultifyingly predictable center-right agenda."

PBS Analyst Mark Shields Says Sebelius 'Stepped Up Manfully' to Take Obamacare Blame; David Brooks Says She's No 'Dynamo'
By Tim Graham | April 12, 2014 | 9:13 AM EDT

While HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius was getting a polite shove out the door, PBS NewsHour analyst Mark Shields offered a note of disclosure: “Well, first of all, let me just admit up front, Kathleen Sebelius has been a personal friend. For 46 years, I have known her.” He even oddly said she “stepped up manfully, to use a bad adverb” in taking the blame for Obamacare.

But Shields and his usual echo-chamber David Brooks disagreed. Brooks said she wasn’t a “dynamo” at HHS, which caused Shields to start touting her. Anchor Judy Woodruff had gently asked, like a good feminist, “What’s her legacy?”

David Brooks: Obama Would Have to 'Ride With Miley Cyrus On The Wrecking Ball' to Seem Unpresidential
By Tim Graham | March 22, 2014 | 10:44 PM EDT

Barack Obama has taken a few soft-soap interviews on the PBS NewsHour, so anchor Judy Woodruff didn't want to say he was sell Obamacare in less than dignified forums -- like prank interviews with the schlub from "The Hangover" movies.

Pseudoconservative analyst David Brooks and liberal Mark Shields typically agreed that Obama has oodles of dignity and cannot be mocked. Brooks said only if Obama's riding "with Miley Cyrus on the wrecking ball" -- where she rode naked in a video -- would it be "going a little too far." That's hardly a visual you'd expect from PBS:

NPR Skipped Fifth Anniversary of Tea Party, But Aired Five Stories Plugging Michelle Obama's 'Let's Move' Anniversary
By Tim Graham | March 1, 2014 | 6:11 PM EST

NPR celebrates political anniversaries – when it likes them. They celebrated the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, when when it had already faded away. This week, NPR aired five stories discussing the fourth anniversary of Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative to get kids to eat better and exercise.

But there was no story on the fifth anniversary of the Tea Party. The closest thing was a Mara Liasson analysis on Thursday of how the Senate races look tough for Democrats this fall – if the Republicans can keep the Tea Party extremists at bay:

Even NYT 'Conservative' Ross Douthat Calls GOP Immigration Push 'Perverse'
By P.J. Gladnick | February 4, 2014 | 3:19 PM EST

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat could hardly be considered a conservative in the mold of, say, a Ted Cruz. Most often he has reflected the "conservativism" of fellow New York Times columnist David Brooks who last summer came out in strong support for the Senate immigration bill.

Therefore it was a very pleasant surprise that Douthat broke with his fellow "conservative" columnist by recently denouncing the Republican establishment push to pass an immigration bill this year as "perverse":

MSNBC Anchor Recalls Near Arrest for Taking Marijuana to Republican Convention
By Brad Wilmouth | January 6, 2014 | 4:42 PM EST

On Friday, in response to supposedly right-leaning New York Times columnist David Brooks admitting to having used marijuana in the past, one MSNBC anchor was inspired to give a five and a half minute segment recalling a near arrest experience while going through security to attend the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]

MSNBC’s Touré Insists He’s Living Proof Marijuana Doesn’t Harm Intelligence
By Matthew Sheffield | January 4, 2014 | 4:59 AM EST

On Friday we learned that New York Times columnist David Brooks does not approve of marijuana legalization on account of his belief that the drug dulls the minds of its habitual users.

Sure, that’s what a lot of those pointed-headed scientist types think but why should we listen to them? Instead, we should take the word Touré Neblett, currently an MSNBC pundit and quite possibly one of the dumbest people ever to appear regularly on television.

NYT's David Brooks: 'I Smoked Marijuana. It Was Fun'
By Noel Sheppard | January 3, 2014 | 12:50 PM EST

Can you imagine the slightly-right of center yet seemingly always stoic New York Times columnist David Brooks smoking pot?

No, I can't either, but found his piece in Friday's Times on this subject rather bold for a supposedly conservative pundit to come out of  the weed closet in order to denounce its legalization:

NYT's Brooks: JFK's Utopianism & Martyrdom Hurt the Presidency - 'Politics Can't Live Up to That Mirage of Religiosity'
By Noel Sheppard | November 23, 2013 | 7:09 PM EST

In the weeks leading up to the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination, media members across the fruited plain have largely gushed and fawned over the former president's legacy and grandeur.

New York Times columnist David Brooks offered a rather unique take on PBS's News Hour Friday saying that Kennedy's utopian vision of what a president can do, along with his subsequent martyrdom, diminished the office because "politics can't live up to that sort of mirage of sort of religiosity" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

PBS Staff RINO David Brooks Rants 2012 GOP Debates Were 'Looney Tunes,' Then Apologizes for Mild Dem Joke
By Tim Graham | November 9, 2013 | 2:36 PM EST

New York Times columnist David Brooks always knows he's sitting on a liberal Democrat set at the PBS NewsHour. PBS viewers don't want a real conservative that makes conservative arguments. Only insults are welcome. So in praising Chris Christie on Friday's show, he said the 2012 GOP presidential debates were "Looney Tunes." He was dead serious.

But when the subject turned to liberal Democrats in New York City, he made a very mild crack about the "Democratic intelligentsia, such as it is," and immediately retracted and apologized: