Letters to the Editor
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It's like Sports Talk
David has a common approach with radio sports talk shows. Radio host makes some wild assed assertion then bases the remainder of their show on this initial unsubstantiated assertion.
For example baseball player x is identified as dogging it by not coming back from an injury quickly enough. There's the assertion, then comes the bloviating: He is not really hurt. He is faking it and providing a bad example to youngsters and besmirching the game of baseball. He should be fired and his pay docked, or be traded immediately or labled a coward and traitor, there are so many other players who fought thru injuries, he wasn't that good a player, who needs him, etc ad-nauseum. The whole problem is there was no effort to identify what the injury was, what is the usual recovery time for such an injury, or how have baseball players in the past responded to this injury. THE FACTS ARE IRRELEVANT. And if a caller calls into the show to share some actual information or facts based in reality, not just in the radio hosts mind, they are ridiculed and shouted off the radio.
So it's easy to understand. If the facts do occassionally line up with Davids views, that's fine but not necessary. What is important is to create an entertaining enough assertion that will piss people off, get them riled up whether pro or con, so in the case of the radio host they call his talk show and in the case of David Brooks people refer to his dumb ass views and articles.