Damning Brooks

Here at the Egg, we have often mocked David Brooks, a mysteriously-still-employed op-ed writer at the Times.  Our mockery has usually been restricted to snarky side comments and the observation that he is the sort of talking head who wears bowties.

If you've ever wondered just what makes Brooks so bad -- worse than Tom Friedman, not quite so heinous as Peggy Noonan -- read Tim Marchman's takedown at Deadspin.  It's mean-spirited, and therefore appropriate to the task.  

To be honest, our main objection to Brooks is that he is, as Marchman says, "a propaganzizer of discredited ideas," namely neonconservatism.  Marchman, however, goes deeper, picking on the contrast between Brooks' obvious rich-boy sense of privilege and his carefully-erected facade of modesty (he teaches a course in "humility" at Yale, for crying out loud).

Here's the best paragraph:

Brooks was a sheltered twit from his earliest years. He attended a fancy day school in New York, a fancy high school in the wealthy Philadelphia suburbs, and the University of Chicago. From there he moved on to comfortable sinecures at propaganda mills like National Review, the Hoover Institution, and the Washington Times. After a stint at the Wall Street Journal, he moved on to the Weekly Standard, where he worked under editor William Kristol, who damaged whatever chances Brooks had of becoming a normal human being.

Nice, huh?  There's more where that came from.