David Brooks is the New York Times' tame right wing columnist. As such he is annoying rather than outrageous, like say Rush Limbaugh. Brooks is good enough that I still read him from time to time. He also appears on PBS and is a good political analyst, especially when he forgets that he's supposed to be a balance for the leftish commentators he appears with. Given that role, his latest column, a scathing attack on Sarah Palin was surprising. Not only that, but he made some astute criticisms of George Bush.
In the current Weekly Standard, Steven Hayward argues that the nation’s founders wanted uncertified citizens to hold the highest offices in the land. They did not believe in a separate class of professional executives. They wanted rough and rooted people like Palin.
I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice.
And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills.
[Snip]
Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.
Too fucking right. You can read the whole thing here.
I sense that the blue-blood Republicans have had it. They are looking at a wipe-out in November and are very, very unhappy. They're unhappy with Bush, with McCain, but especially with Sarah Palin. She's going to be blamed for their humiliation. Not because she's a woman, or from Alaska, but because she is a lens that focuses nearly everything that has gone wrong in the last 8 years.
