"In Berlin," says David Brooks, "Obama made exactly one point with which it was possible to disagree. In the best paragraph of the speech, Obama called on Germans to send more troops to Afghanistan." What's odd about that take is that Obama, in the paragraphs immediately following that one, made a series of points with which I'm pretty sure David Brooks, and many of his colleagues, disagree. Within the space of a few lines, Obama calls "a world without nuclear weapons," demands that we " reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia," calls on Americans to " act with the same seriousness of purpose as has [Germany], and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere," demands that we "reject torture," and asks whether we'll "welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don't look like us or worship like we do." Which is to say, I don't think David Brooks and I read, or heard, the same speech. The conservative movement and presidential administration with which Brooks is associated disagrees with all of those ideas. More than that, they've enshrined those disagreements into policy. Now, disagreeing with the Bush administration and its supporters may seem like picking an easy fight to Brooks -- it may not be a "brave" disagreement to condemn torture -- but for both America and the world, it's the relevant disagreement. These may sound like consensus positions, but the reality of American policy is that they're not.
