Today's Must Read

A brilliant piece by Tom Scocca -- an elegant and precise take-down of David Brooks and, by extension, the whole chattering class:

"We're going to be doing a lot of deficit cutting over the next several years," David Brooks announced, plurally, in their column in today's New York Times. Little-known fact: the byline "David Brooks" is produced by five guys named "David Brook." They all get together and agree on stuff!

. . .

David Brooks support thoughtful, constructive public policy. "The country could use a serious, competent manager," they wrote, in praise of Daniels. (Ergo, people who disagree with Brooks are in favor of unserious and incompetent country-management.) When Daniels spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference, Brooks wrote:

He spoke for those who believe the country’s runaway debt is the central moral challenge of our time.

Not merely a central moral challenge of our time, but the central moral challenge of our time. Maybe I was distracted and missed the day we let all the young black men back out of prison. (How are they doing? They must feel great now.) And I guess one David Brook showed all the others a satellite photo of how the glaciers are growing back.

I used to read David Brooks' column on a regular basis. And then it started having less and less to do with any sort of objective reality, and I finally stopped.

It's nice to see that some things haven't changed.