He overlooked actual events-that conquering the West meant killing Indians, that the Cold War meant Vietnam-because what mattered was the effect on the national psyche.
In Salon, Laura Miller wrote that Brooks has made a “brief, ignominious, muddy slide” from “amusing to annoying,” and reviewers in the Nation and the Washington Post Book Review likewise swung baseball bats at his kneecaps. Some switch has flipped: Journalist pals who used to chuckle at “liberals’ favorite conservative” now rage against him.īrooks’ “National Greatness” notion was again about American psychology and esteem. In the New York Times Book Review, Brooks’ pal (and Slate founding editor) Michael Kinsley jabbed Brooks’ supposed sociology as mere comic shtick. In April, Philadelphia’s Sasha Issenberg fact-checked Brooks’ articles about divided America and discovered that Brooks exaggerated and distorted differences between Red and Blue states to make his pop sociology even fizzier.Īnd since Brooks’ new book, On Paradise Drive, hit bookstores this month, Brooks’ erstwhile liberal friends have been thumping it-and him. If a liberal who’s been mugged is a conservative, what’s a conservative who’s been mugged? Let’s ask David Brooks!įor the past few months, the lovable house conservative of the New York Times and satirical sociologist has been taking a beating.
