BROOKS PAN-GLOSSIANISM: Poor David Brooks. With John Tierney off the New York Times op-ed page, Brooks will now have to bear the brunt of Times readers’ frustration at unsubstantiated pan-glossian nonesense (the only other remaing target being Thomas Friedman.)
His Sunday column was a perfect example. Brooks complains, “no major Democrat today speaks as confidently about globalization and technological change as Bill Clinton and Al Gore did a decade ago.” But he does not seriously contend with the idea that a decade after NAFTA that may be because Democrats have seen the ill-effects of “free” trade on working class people in this country and others play out. Instead he simply points to a couple of macro-statistics about general prosperity. And, he is sure to note, “Democratic activist group Third Way is so remarkable,” for “taking on the rising neopopulists.” But Brooks description of Third Way is so minimal as to be misleading. Hardly some grassroots movement of brave dissidents, they are a house organ for well-connected moderates, with a long established agenda of pulling Democrats rightward. Right now their website features a press release with the headline, “Third Way Applauds Bush Comments on Increasing Size of the Military.”
Brooks goes on to assert “[populist Dems] vilify overpaid C.E.O.�s, even though their pay packages have nothing to do with the stagnant wages of the unskilled,” without citing a shred of evidence. This doesn’t even make sense. If a company has X dollars to spend on salaries, and the CEO makes $10 million instead of, say, $1 million per year, wouldn’t it make sense that the $9 million difference is being taken away from other workers? OK, it’s not necessarily that simple, but Brooks makes no effort to prove that it’s untrue and why. This kind of lazy argumentation ought not to have a place in the pages of the country’s best newspaper.
–Ben Adler