Brooks Again

Of course much worse than Kristof is David Brooks. Many commentators, including Lawyers Guns Money, Praktike, and others have discussed his laughable column yesterday where he compared Democrats who oppose Social Security evisceration to Yasir Arafat. Yes that's right, Harry Reid is a terrorist. Read the column and the other links for the rest of the details. I do have 2 general comments though.

1. What would happen if Democrats compared Republicans to terrorists? Would that be OK? Would that even be published by the Times? Me thinks it unlikely.

2. One of the more frustrating things for me about watching Republicans plans fail all the time is that they are writing their own history of failure while it happens. They have a whole narrative that basically goes like this--"If only our ideas had been fully implemented, they would have worked perfectly. The only reason they failed was that the Democrats got in the way. If they had only rolled over and died, our country and our world would be a utopia by now. Just vote the Democrats out entirely and watch the millenium come." This goes for Iraq, it goes for the deficit, it goes for Social Security. Not only will Democrats have to deal with this narrative in future elections but academics will have to deal with it when we teach right-wing students.