Who Refused the Largest Cut in the Size of Government in American History?

David Brooks may be even angrier at Republicans than N and I are. 

The Road Not Taken

By David Brooks – NYT, July 18, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

In this column, he furiously declares that he will expose the people who refused the largest cut in the size of government in American history.  He threatens to name names but doesn’t go far enough.

Brooks puts the culprits who engineered this catastrophe into categories:

The Beltway Bandits.

One example is Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.  He enforces rigid ultimatums that make governance, or even thinking, impossible.

·         He was a Newt Gingrich strategist in the 1990s.

·         He was a Jack Abramoff companion in the 2000s.

·         He enforces the no-compromise orthodoxy that binds the party today.

The Big Government Blowhards.

The talk-radio jocks of the conservative ghetto are in the business of building an audience by stroking the pleasure centers of their listeners.  Their rantings have nothing to do with governance.

The Show Horses.

These are Republican political celebrities who are uninterested in governing.  Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann produce tweets, not laws.  They are hopelessly unelectable women in snappy outfits demanding purity over practicality.

I would have named a lot more names here.  I think Brooks is trying to honor Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment:  "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."

The Permanent Campaigners.

For many legislators, the purpose of being in Congress is not to pass laws or take responsibility for the state of the country and make it better.  It’s to create clear contrasts they can take into the next election campaign.

Brooks believes there are still practical conservatives in the GOP, who believe in results, who believe in intelligent compromise.  We can only hope.  We can agree with Brooks however that if “Tea Party” types wish to remain in office after the debt ceiling debacle, then leadership must be transferred now to real conservatives.