The New Republic

I think Obama understands Ryan perfectly. I suspect Ryan understands Obama pretty well. The problem is, they have diametrically opposed views on how to resolve the "economic crisis". Ryan wants to give the Free Market yet another chance while cutting taxes, while Obama wants to FINALLY implement some Government cost-controls while restoring taxes to the Clinton era. Obama is interested in compromise, but Ryan will reject any compromise. That being said, "a nice lunch" won't resolve the issue. "Mutual understanding" won't resolve that issue either.

- AllanL5

April 19, 2011 at 9:52am

David Brooks can be -- CAN BE -- an interesting writer, but as an intellect he's dwarfed by Krugman. If you want to know what a policy debate between the two would look like, I think a Harlem Globetrotters "game" against the Washington Generals might be an apt analogy. Also, as someone who has taken a course taught by Dr Krugman, I can tell you the notion that he's anything like a hippy is about as silly as, well, just about anything else you're likely to read in The Weekly Standard.

- DC Spence

April 19, 2011 at 9:57am

How about the fact that Brooks is a moron and Krugman has a Nobel Prize? When he still had a public e-mail address, I used to send Brooks e-mails telling him that he couldn't possibly be Jewish because no Jew could be as stupid as he is. I also regularly suggested that he have Krugman proofread everything he writes about economic affairs so that he would stop embarrassing himself and the Times. Brooks is a court Jew to the Republicans, an odious, fawning, boot-licker, shorn of anything that I could recognize as self-respect. Like the crowd he shills for, he doesn't think that one ought to know something about reality before expressing his opinions. Reality? What's that? The more ignorant he is, the better he fawns.

- roidubouloi

April 19, 2011 at 10:01am

They don't get along because Brooks, bless his his affable warm-and-fuzzy heart, is the 21st century's most prominent exponent of Broderism, a philosophy that made almost a vague amount of sense until it was blown apart by the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Krugman, on the other hand, knows that aside from a few leftovers like Brooks, there are no warm-and-fuzzy Republicans; the elected ones want to take us back to the 50s -- the 1850s! Krugman doesn't want to go (nor do I) and he doesn't have any patience with those who think such a chasm of intent can be papered over with "Why can't we all just get along?" platitudes. "Nice" is a great quality and Brooks has plenty of "niceness" but it's not the same thing as being reasonable -- or right. Richard Jasper Cooperstown, NY

- arpeejay

April 19, 2011 at 10:08am

When it comes to economics, and I see Brooks write about it, I have to wince. He really has NO idea what he is talking about and gives non-serious adult answers that make no sense. He was taken in like a lot of blowhards in the establishment press by a complete and utter fraud named Paul Ryan. He can't walk that back. Most people with a modicum of understanding of the Federal budget and policy could tell Ryan was a fraud from the get go. However, people like Brooks who can't help but opine on things he knows nothing about, did this country a major disserivce by puffing up this flim-flam man.

- MikeB.

April 19, 2011 at 10:11am

Maybe Brooks and Krugman could settle their differences over a nice lunch. There's a habit that seems to be most prevalent among conservatives of accusing anyone of questioning their analyses of "talking down" to them or "patronizing" them. But I wish I knew how one can be nice about explaining to someone that their precious "common sense" views are completely bats**t crazy. Being called out on logic or data is, somehow, a violation of rules of civility.

- ramcat

April 19, 2011 at 10:29am

Yes, the whole "can't we all be nice" routine is meant to create some kind of moral equivalence between moronic pseudo-ideas: creationism, climate-change denial, supply-side economics, and reality rationally and scientifically addressed, so that we have to give them equal weight in public debate. Ryan is a fraud. Brooks is a fraud. It is important to say so. We cannot hope to address the very serious problems that face us if we are obliged to devote our time and effort to refuting morons.

- roidubouloi

April 19, 2011 at 10:44am

The thing about Brooks' allegedly evenhanded attacks on both ends of the political spectrum is that they're not very even. He always tries to end up in a place in which the conservative viewpoint looks superior, or at least less inferior. In one column last year, I recall him attacking conservatives for promoting the Obama-is-a-Muslim silliness, and fair enough. But his example of liberals doing the same thing was their alleged refusal to acknowledge that Bush's Iraq surge worked. Huh? A disagreement about foreign policy is on the same level as birther lunacy? Yeah, I guess both sides are rigid and inflexible!

- acbrod

April 19, 2011 at 10:50am

As for the question of "how Jewish" Brooks really is, I remember another column from last year in which he meets a Torah scholar named Erica Brown and says: "I invited her to coffee, and it all became clear. Brown has what many people are looking for these days. In the first place, she has conviction. For her, Judaism isn’t a punch line or a source of neuroticism; it’s a path to self-confident and superior living." It's a surprise to him that Judaism isn't a punchline? It's like the only Jew Brooks ever knew was Shecky Greene. What a putz.

- acbrod

April 19, 2011 at 10:55am

I am as much against niceness-for-nicenesses-sake as the next goy, but roid, did you really just keep sending hostile emails to Brooks? what's the point?

- miceelf

April 19, 2011 at 11:05am

I suppose that explains why a column putatively about the lunatic Trump, who is the leading Republican contender for President, not once includes the word "Republican". And I thought it was because Brooks believed, if he didn't mention it, nobody would notice that the lunatic Trump is a Republican, Brooks being the master of equivalence - hey, each side has a crazy uncle who is the leading contender for President, right?.

- rayward

April 19, 2011 at 11:17am

Interesting post. I would never have guessed that the Brooks column was a swipe at Krugman. Perhaps. One interesting follow-up point is that Brooks always talks about conventions of politeness among elites, usually in a half-mocking tone, and one senses that he himself feels their impact quite keenly on a personal level. Krugman, on the other hand, has never really been able to feign the aw-shucks intellectual modesty, the we-can-all-agreeably-disagree demeanor that is normative in those elite circles. Aside from a personality that isn't oriented in that way, I think that is because Krugman recognizes how "technical" disagreements about economics and policy actually have a massive and crucial impact on ordinary people's lives, and because he has a better view into the way in which those "technical" disagreements stem from fundamental proclivities which he takes to be key to the moral probity of professional intellectuals. I'm guessing that Krugman might occasionally wish that he were more socially smooth and came across as less of a know-it-all, but that he feels like the benefits of that persona would largely accrue to him personally, whereas the benefits of his being right, and of forthrightly attacking those who are wrong, potentially accrue to many more people. In that light, being 'nice' and smooth would be a personal indulgence (even if it were personally possible) but being 'abrasive' and right is actually the more altruistic stance to take. In the end, I think Krugman is probably right; I certainly can't imagine him being as influential and as clear in his analyses without being rather rude toward the many people who disagree with him or just float along on the conventional wisdom. Brooks could write a truly culturally insightful column about how deep intellectual integrity is under-valued in our populist American culture. It would play to his strengths, too. How 'bout it, David? Have another look at Tocqueville for some inspiration on that theme!

- bmoodie

April 19, 2011 at 11:47am

Re the idea of Obama and Ryan discussing their differences over lunch, Krugman knows that it would be an utter waste of time. He said a while back, "You can't accommodate the Republicans, you can only defeat them." That's the sort of clear-eyed perception of the GOP that every Democrat needs to adopt.

- DAVIDDREIER@EARTHLINK.NET-old

April 19, 2011 at 12:24pm

roidubouloi, As someone who grew up in Bethesda, MD [or Hanukkah Heights, as my Jewish neighbors still call it], I can tell you there are plenty of Jews far stupider than David Brooks. I went to elementary school, junior high and high school with them. Heck, some of them were even my friends. In general I've Jews are as likely to be smart as anyone else, which often comes as a shock even to Jews themselves. I can still recall the look of shock on the faces of the parents of one of my best friends when they learned that not only was I thrashing their son at chess but I had also been accepted to a much better college. They had always been so nice to me so I couldn't even be offended by their reaction. Actually, I felt for them.

- DC Spence

April 19, 2011 at 12:30pm

Actually, having a lunch with your adversaries can be a shrewd political move. Shows you really tried to compromise; particularly useful if you use this before pummeling them politically. Problem with Ryan is he doesn't have enough stature to deserve lunch with Obama. Maybe a Plouffe and Ryan or a Pelosi and Ryan lunch.

- sokol8

April 19, 2011 at 12:44pm

Release of stress, micelf, when I would read one of his infuriating columns in which he either displays his complete ignorance with a smarmy tone or, as pointed out above, engages in highly partisan attacks under the false claim of being even-handed. I assumed he never read a one of them. It was in the days before TNR online. Now I get to point out that Brooks is a moron and a toady in public. Much more satisfying than e-mail to the void.

- roidubouloi

April 19, 2011 at 12:50pm

These 2 ought not be juxtaposed. Krugman likely grants Brooks nary a thought.

- Bukharin

April 19, 2011 at 12:52pm

Yeah, DC, but how many get to embarrass the tribe by displaying their ignorance so visibly, writing for the Times? I feel like the Times giving this smuck a platform is anti-Semitic. I disagreed with William Safire about pretty much everything, but I was never as offended by him as I am by Brooks because Safire did not pretend to be something he was not - either above the ideological fray or entitled to express opinions in the Times about technical questions about which he knew absolutely nothing, again pretending that he was someone without a strong ideologically-driven point of view.

- roidubouloi

April 19, 2011 at 1:00pm

“How about the fact that Brooks is a moron and Krugman has a Nobel Prize?” Lots of important economists haven’t won the Swedish prize, but that doesn’t make them “morons.” Brooks is not an economist. He writes about social theory sometimes well sometimes less well, and I don’t often agree with him. Still the man is no moron. On social issues Brooks is at his worst when he endorses the worst tendencies in Republican party’s desire to minimize government’s role in the economy. Krugman, on the other hand, does make a lot of sense when he writes about government role in keeping our wobbly economy going. Roidubouloi’s view that Brooks “is a court Jew to the Republicans” is just vile nonsense. He also wrong to say as he did that “Brooks couldn't possibly be Jewish because no Jew could be as stupid as he is.” The same could be said about Roid. Doesn't take a lot of brains to inject bigotry in a conversation.

- arnon

April 19, 2011 at 1:22pm

Let's see, David Brooks has a New York Times column and r. does not. Now, getting published in the Times isn't necessarily a sign of a superior intellect; Billy Kristol had a column there for a whole year. But on average, fatuous people do not get columns at the Times. Now, Brooks writes elegantly and r. swears at people, which probably wouldn't pass muster at the Times. I frequently disagree with Brooks but as JC himself has written, he is a great cultural critic. The Manichaean r. simply can't stand anyone from the other side, so he has to demean the intellects of those to the starboard side. It is amazing how many times in the three-plus years I have commented here that I have read amoeba-like minds calling those whose cognitive powers are vastly superior to theirs "dumb." These individuals are self-parodies. Allan, your comment is an excellent one. You are dead-on, DC. Also, Paul Krugman has his problems, too, though the ideologues on the left would never admit it or probably, even recognize this phenomenon. He has become more the ideologue in later years, and one hears this might be because of Robin Wells, his wife. Krugman is prone to what I call the Greenwald Fallacy, which is to fantasize that executive power is well beyond what it in reality is. About a decade ago, Krugman tried to pawn off the anti-Semitism of then-Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad on George W. Bush, which was clearly absurd and TNR called him on it. Further, though Krugman is obviously a crack economist - and a Nobelist - these data do not make him infallible. I think that Krugman's call for a takeover of the major banks at the start of the financial crisis probably would have been disastrous and Tim Geithner's policies have worked out pretty well, as it has transpired. It is always easier to be an armchair critic - even for a Nobel Prize winner - than it is to actually run things. Wait a minute, I had better stop, I am starting to sound like Mr. David Brooks.

- liberalref

April 19, 2011 at 1:29pm

DCSpense, I am surpised you took the bait and started ranking Jews according to their "intelligence." This is pretty low. Would you go after a black persons' argeument by ranking his intelligence?

- arnon

April 19, 2011 at 1:29pm

"Krugman sees Brooks as residing comfortably within the cozy embrace of the conventional wisdom, whereas he (Krugman) risks being cast as a partisan or a radical by arbiters of respectability like Brooks for following the logic through to its conclusions. Of course, pitting Brooks against a Nobel prize winning economist in a debate over public policy is about as fair as making Krugman debate me about the University of Michigan football team." That's a better way of seeing their differences. While I agree with Krugman on economic issues (most of the time) and I seldom agree with Brooks on social issues I do learn something from most of his columns I have read. I doubt I will be reading many more of their columns since I don't intend to pay the NY Times money for that minor privilege.

- arnon

April 19, 2011 at 1:37pm

A much better example of the dispute you write about occurred a year or two ago when Krugman and Brooks had dueling columns about Ronald Reagan's decision to begin his 1980 presidential run in Philadelphia, MS. Krugman http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/opinion/19krugman.html?_r=1&ref=paulkrugman Brooks http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/opinion/09brooks.html?ref=davidbrooks These two columns, published only 10 days apart, are the closest they have come to a direct slugfest.

- thuffman

April 19, 2011 at 1:50pm

Pssst... a little secret about paying for the NY Times. When the box comes up asking you to pay if you delete the "?" and everything after it in the URL you can read the articles as normal. I don't really know what they're thinking or if it's some sort of error.

- Pnaut

April 19, 2011 at 3:12pm

Thanks for sharing your secret, Pnaut. I tried it and it worked.

- arnon

April 19, 2011 at 3:23pm

Brooks most certainly is a moron because he writes insufferably stupid things about economics displaying no awareness that he has not the slightest idea what he is talking about. Of corse, he shares this in common with libref which would explain lib's inability to see just how stupid Brooks is. Brooks debating Krugman would be about like asking Brooks to take the field against the Michigan football team. Tim Geithner's policies have sucked purchasing power from the middle class to recapitalize the banks and restore the capital of security holders who should have lost their value. Hence, ongoing lack of demand and very slow recovery. See, in contrast the successful recapitalization of the auto industry. What libref understands about banking, bankruptcy, money, and finance wouldn't fill a thimble, not least the fact that the author of the relevant policies was Summers, not Geithner.

- roidubouloi

April 19, 2011 at 5:18pm

Brooks strikes me as a nice enough fellow and a competent writer, but he's just not very bright. He never makes a coherent argument. He doesn't know how, or he's afraid to, or he doesn't feel like it. This makes many of columns aggravating, because he takes positions without properly supporting them. His cultural criticism is hackneyed. His way of boiling issues down to opposing concepts is superficially appealing but lacks rigor. His humor isn't funny.

- JakeH

April 19, 2011 at 5:31pm

roidubouloi "Brooks most certainly is a moron because he writes insufferably stupid things about economics displaying no awareness that he has not the slightest idea what he is talking about." Yet he is a highly paid columnist for a major paper with lots of admirers and you are just some obscure and resentful poster on a blog that very few people read. That’s why you are jealous of David Brooks and angry at libref. You are wish you could be a “court Jew.” It won’t happen because you too damn dumb. Insulting your beeters is the best you can do, asshole.

- nr106646

April 19, 2011 at 7:22pm

JakeH, Brooks isn't trying to force ideas on people. He tries to make you think. That's why he doesn't give you marching orders when he writes as does Krugman. Krugman may be economically smart, but when it comes to influencing people he is pretty dumb.

- nr106646

April 19, 2011 at 7:27pm

Another moron raises her hand. Brooks is smart; Krugman is dumb. Thus saith 106646. You just keep on admiring Brooks. Since you cannot be any stupider or more ignorant than you already are, his vapid partisanship cannot do you any harm. Nor could reading Krugman do you any good. Waaaaaay over your head. Plus, there is the very remote chance that Krugman might corrupt your knownothingism. If somehow you came to understand the least little thing, you wouldn't be you.

- roidubouloi

April 20, 2011 at 8:08am

Well, I see people are still posting on this thread as of this morning, so what the hell. However, as someone with two Jewish brothers-in-law, I refuse to comment on the ethnic aspects of this discussion. Rather . . . To all of you: I strongly suspect that Chait wrote this post just to set the cat among the pigeons over at the Times, then sit back and see what happens. If the posts here are any indication, he is probably getting interesting results. Care to share any of the e-mails you've gotten on this one, Jonathan?

- timteeter

April 20, 2011 at 11:31am

David Brooks serves no purpose in the world except to misrepresent the real political debate taking place in Washington and distract from the ugly consequences, suffered by real people, of real policy (who mostly aren't Times readers), with a lot of passive aggressive tut tuting at critics and victims of those policies -- and, of course, a lot of peer-pleasing cooing designed to reassure his conservative and affluent cohorts of their decency and wisdom (no matter how many children go without health care, how many workers lose their jobs, how many families face foreclosure, how costly our unpaid for wars in lives and treasure, how destructive to economic mobility and the American dream those policies have proved to be). Krugman is an economist. Krugman may at times be wrong in his judgements and conclusions. He at times engages with and reponds to critics. Because, he is presenting an arguments based in fact, real events and data, and his interpretation of those fact, events and data. But Brooks can never be wrong and never responds to critics. Because right or wrong, true or false, don't apply to Brookes anymore than they apply to most kind ofs advertising. He's not providing information or facts, he's providing support for specific political players, selling attitude, and, for a large part of the Times' affluent readership, providing reassurance.

- esmense

April 20, 2011 at 12:38pm

Thank you, esmense. I would add that Brooks constantly misrepresents what he is doing by attempting, inevitably lamely, to cloak his ideology in false or even absurd factual claims. He is merely a smoother Paul Ryan who has learned to speak in tones reassuring to liberals who do not themselves take the effort to understand the issues and the stakes. With Brooks, it is ALL propaganda, all the time. There is no reason at all to take any of what he says as intellectually seriously.

- roidubouloi

April 20, 2011 at 2:25pm

What bunk. Krugman has turned himself into a frothing idiot. Only a thorough partisan can't see it. Brooks is a bit mealy mouthed, but if Chait is right, I'd have a heck of a lot more respect for him.

- ds111

April 20, 2011 at 9:59pm

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. (Benjamin Franklin)

- noga1

April 21, 2011 at 6:22pm

The "abrasive urges" Brooks notes to be human nature are certainly clear in most of the above.

- lynnchu1

May 6, 2011 at 7:46am

or the problem might simply be that Brooks is a pompous moron who knows neither history nor economics and is fuzzy about sociology and anthropology, in spite of his new book. Krugman repeats himself in one way or another is his twice-weekly column in the NY Times. He is a Keynesian, against the deficit, and an intelligent left populist who argues often that the real problems we face are inequality (as opposed to poverty), the need to create jobs and innovate and long-term and steep unemployment. Brooks, on the other hand, seems not to understand that, while he may like Edmund Burke and Samuel Coleridge and some aspects of JS Mill (On Bentham and Coleridge) and Michael Oakeshott, he is not merely a conventional thinker, but one who doesn't think cogently at all and who ignores the fact that there is no real conservative tradition of the European sort in American. The people we in America call conservatives are actually radical 19th century economic liberals who want us to regress back to the 19th century, back into Social Darwinism (Spencer, not Darwin) and the economic liberalism or classic economics of Ricardo. Burke and Coleridge and Mill and John Gray or Michael Oakeshott, all brilliant and consequential thinkers, dwarf David Brooks and they lived or currently live (Gray) in a society -- England or Great Britain -- which had great institutions to conserve as well as a conservative literary and political tradition, rooted in the notion of historical continuity consistent with gradual progress. Brooks is a mushy thinker because he tries and fails to apply English and European conservatism in defense of a Republican Party that serves nothing but big corporations and big money and that both in terms of political economy and social changes wants the United States to regress to 19th century ideas and behavior.

- wallykatz2

May 9, 2011 at 4:51pm

Back in the nineties Krugman was a respected mainstream economist. He defended free trade and opposed fads like industrial policy on the left and supply side on the right. Today Krugman has betrayed all he once stood for. He panders to the vapid, self-congratulatory, middlebrow liberalism of the New York Times, NPR, and the New Yorker. He really should be ashamed of himself.

- bulbman1066

July 18, 2011 at 4:18am

Brooks and Krugman share a common distinction, both are columnists for The Times, but there the similarity ends. To the rest of us I don't think it matters whether they like one another. Brooks is a feel good guy, where Krugman is mostly not, or so it appears. But what matters to most readers of The Times is a simple equation: who gets it right more often, and here Krugman flat out wins. And the economic standard he holds himself to is far more demanding a discipline than that of a generalist, like Brooks. While I watch Brooks opposite Mark Shields on Friday nights over PBS, and enjoy their civil exchanges, I seldom read Brooks' column, but for me Krugman is a must read. But on the point of Brooks wanting the president and Ryan to break bread together, that's just silly. Brooks believes Ryan is smart, but based upon what? Ryan's economic plan is absurd and so out of touch with the real needs of Main Street it could cost him his Congressional seat next year. Ryan may need the president, but the president has no need of the gentleman from Wisconsin. George Mitrovich

- cityclub

October 25, 2011 at 5:52pm