David Brooks – News Stories About David Brooks - Page 3

Economists Are
Rediscovering Humility
—and Humanity

DAVID BROOKS

Mar 26, 2010 5:00 AM CDT

Economists Are Rediscovering Humility —and Humanity

Field should be seen as an art, not a science

(Newser) - The failure of economists to spot the financial crisis in advance is causing soul-searching that will redefine the whole field, writes David Brooks. The cutting-edge models economists built over decades ignored the complexities of human nature and economists are now rediscovering the humility of an earlier time and trying to...

Democrats Are Out of Gas

DAVID BROOKS

Mar 23, 2010 5:39 AM CDT

Democrats Are Out of Gas

Party 'lacks vigor now that welfare state is complete'

(Newser) - The Democrats' passage of health care reform felt like a family reunion where you saw "the whole panoply of what you loved and found annoying about these people" to David Brooks. President Obama and Nancy Pelosi deserve posterity "for sheer resilience," he writes, but as the last...

Reconciliation Will Make Senate Less Human

DAVID BROOKS

Mar 16, 2010 4:50 AM CDT

Reconciliation Will Make Senate Less Human

Partisan reconciliation will turn Senate into House, predicts David Brooks

(Newser) - Using reconciliation to push health care through will turn the Senate into a crude, partisan arena much like the House, argues David Brooks. Once a place where alliances were formed between individual lawmakers, the Senate used to reflect the human sympathy seen in one-on-one relationships; a party-line vote will reduce...

Right, Left
Are Blind to
Obama's
Centrism

DAVID BROOKS

Mar 12, 2010 5:47 AM CST

Right, Left Are Blind to Obama's Centrism

Prez is neither a pushover nor a big-government liberal

(Newser) - If you believe President Obama is either a ruthless big-government liberal or an ineffective, overly intellectual leader, it probably says more about your politics than his, argues David Brooks. Obama is, and always has been "a center-left pragmatic reformer" who believes in "a moderately activist government restrained by...

Tea Partiers Are
the New Hippies

STEAL THIS MOVEMENT

Mar 5, 2010 1:20 AM CST

Tea Partiers Are the New Hippies

Anti-establishment activists using '60s tactics: David Brooks

(Newser) - The anti-establishment types in the Tea Party movement remind David Brooks of another group of protesters who wanted to bring power back to the people and stick it to The Man. The Tea Partiers have adopted many of the tactics the New Left used in the 1960s, from street theater...

Bayh: Third Party Could Win White House

Feb 18, 2010 10:34 AM CST

Bayh: Third Party Could Win White House

Soon-to-be-ex-senator sees a 'Ross Perot moment' in 2012

(Newser) - Evan Bayh thinks the time is ripe for a third-party president. “There’s a high level of frustration with the two-party system out there,” Bayh told Charlie Rose, when asked about David Brooks’ theory that a third party candidate could at last be viable. “This is, in...

We Need to Fend Off the Recession's Social Blows

DAVID BROOKS

Feb 16, 2010 8:15 AM CST

We Need to Fend Off the Recession's Social Blows

Men have been hit hardest by high unemployment, writes David Brooks

(Newser) - America is facing a period of prolonged high unemployment that will require a strong response to stop the bonds of society from breaking, writes David Brooks. The recession's biggest impact has been on men, Brooks writes, noting that the gap between male and female unemployment is at its highest since...

Obama Should
Be the 'Saner
Ross Perot'

David Brooks

Jan 29, 2010 8:51 AM CST

Obama Should Be the 'Saner Ross Perot'

Become the permanent outsider and fix the deficit, Mr. President

(Newser) - Somewhere out there lurks a “saner, updated version of Ross Perot,” ready to swoop in and ride the public’s growing dissatisfaction with all things Washington. He’ll rail against the mounting deficits, and the Republicans and Democrats who let them mount. Well, Barack Obama, “you can...

Populism's a Losing Strategy

DAVID BROOKS

Jan 26, 2010 5:15 AM CST

Populism's a Losing Strategy

Voters too smart to buy into class struggle, writes David Brooks

(Newser) - Populism is back in vogue but politicians scrambling to bash the elite forget that it's almost always been a losing strategy, warns David Brooks. Politicians—whether they're Democrats taking potshots at Wall Street or Sarah Palin blasting the cultural elite—should remember that America was built by people like Alexander...

Haiti Is a Cultural Disaster,
Not a Natural One

DAVID BROOKS

Jan 15, 2010 6:59 AM CST

Haiti Is a Cultural Disaster, Not a Natural One

Progress-resistant country needs 'intrusive paternalism'

(Newser) - The tragedy in Haiti is more a man-made than a natural disaster, caused by shoddy construction and terrible infrastructure, writes David Brooks, noting the 1989 Bay Area earthquake of the same magnitude only killed 63 people. The kind of poverty that caused this catastrophe needs to be tackled, but to...

Welcome to the
Tea Party Decade

DAVID BROOKS

Jan 5, 2010 1:20 AM CST

Welcome to the Tea Party Decade

Dissatisfied public will make movement a major player

(Newser) - America's beginning this decade in a bad mood, and the tea party movement is poised to conquer it the way hippies dominated the '60s and Christian conservatives the '80s, writes David Brooks. Public opinion is shifting not just to the right, but away from the interests of big business and...

Health Bill
Fiendishly
Hard to Call

david brooks

Dec 18, 2009 1:20 AM CST

Health Bill Fiendishly Hard to Call

Lack of fundamental reform makes it a narrow no for Brooks

(Newser) - David Brooks would vote no if he were a senator deciding on the health care bill today. But he admits that the pros and cons are so finely balanced that he flip-flops from week to week. The bill should be supported because it takes the deficit seriously, will provide insurance...

Obama Revives
Cold War Liberalism

DAVID BROOKS

Dec 15, 2009 5:33 AM CST

Obama Revives Cold War Liberalism

In Nobel speech, a 'Christian realist' Obama Doctrine

(Newser) - President Obama's Oslo speech showed a spirit of Christian realism that most liberals abandoned after Vietnam but that would have been very familiar to Harry Truman, writes David Brooks. Obama, by acknowledging that evil exists and stressing that power needs to be constrained within institutions like NATO, is applying the...

How to Revive
American
Innovation

DAVID BROOKS

Dec 8, 2009 9:06 AM CST

How to Revive American Innovation

Bipartisan agenda can defeat post-recession pessimism

(Newser) - Pessimism about America's future role in the world economy is spreading even as the economy stabilizes, but there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful, writes David Brooks in the New York Times . America's economy still has incredible potential, Brooks writes, and the government can revive innovation and stay competitive...

The Obama Campaign Is Over: Get Used to It

DAVID BROOKS

Dec 4, 2009 8:04 AM CST

The Obama Campaign Is Over: Get Used to It

The analytical balancing act is what the country needs

(Newser) - Many Democrats are complaining that the passion of the Obama campaign is missing from the White House but they should realize that upbeat rallies aren't what it takes to run a country, writes David Brooks. It requires endless amounts of prodding and compromise to get anything done in Washington and...

Obama's Afghan Plan Won't Please Anybody

DAVID BROOKS

Dec 1, 2009 6:32 AM CST

Obama's Afghan Plan Won't Please Anybody

Which means that the president may have gotten it right

(Newser) - President Obama has assembled parts of different Afghanistan strategies into a whole that looks certain to displease just about everybody when it is unveiled tonight, writes David Brooks. The administration appears to have pulled back from its earlier enthusiasm for a comprehensive counterinsurgency—COIN—plan in favor of COIN-lite, Brooks...

US Needs to Regain
Faith in the Future

DAVID BROOKS

Nov 17, 2009 4:00 AM CST

US Needs to Regain Faith in the Future

China shouldn't have monopoly on dynamism

(Newser) - America needs to overcome its "crisis of faith" caused by China's phenomenal growth, writes David Brooks. Today's China is optimistic, forward-looking, and dynamic in the way America once was and should hope to be again, he points out in the New York Times . Surveys show that 86% of Chinese...

Unassuming Thune Could Be GOP's Future

DAVID BROOKS

Nov 13, 2009 8:06 AM CST

Unassuming Thune Could Be GOP's Future

Nice-guy populist eyed as 2012 contender

(Newser) - The junior senator from South Dakota is starting to get a lot of attention from the less hysterical sections of the GOP as the party seeks to build on recent successes, writes David Brooks . John Thune never sounds like he's auditioning for a spot on talk radio, but instead puts...

Stop Making
Excuses
for Hasan

OPINION roundup

Nov 10, 2009 7:11 AM CST

Stop Making Excuses for Hasan

Murderous Islamic extremism was his motive, not PTSD

(Newser) - Commentators are working overtime to explain away the Fort Hood shootings as a personal breakdown rather than what it obviously was, three conservative columnists argue today: a terrorist assault by an Islamic extremist.

The explanation for Major Hasan's actions should be crystal clear to anybody not afraid of offending Muslim

...

Get a Clue,
Washington:
You Can't Do
Everything

DAVID BROOKS

Oct 27, 2009 5:10 AM CDT

Get a Clue, Washington: You Can't Do Everything

Effort to restructure exec pay smacks of arrogance

(Newser) - Clamping down on arrogant, risk-taking execs with an overconfident attempt to overhaul private sector pay structures shows that the arrogance has migrated to the Obama administration, writes David Brooks. The government is trying to micro-manage compensation packages at a wide variety of firms when pay regulation should be done, humbly,...