I have long found David Brooks to be an odious presence on the "American" scene. I don't subscribe to the New York Times, so I'm not insulted by his writing. But I do watch "News Hour," and he is the "conservative" counterpoint to the "liberal" Mark Shields. This tedious interchange has been going on for years, and is a huge waste of time that could be used covering real news.

Glenn Greenwald again shows the way, picking Brooks apart point by point. This is what it takes. With a thousand more Greenwalds, maybe the punditocracy will be brought down.

I agree, Glenn, Brooks is a two-note song; depending on what day you read his column, you get either of the two.

For Brooks to claim, "the Center holds", indicative (to him at least) of no movement to the left, is ludicrous.

David Brooks is so full of himself that he has no capacity for introspection or reversal of a previous stance even in view of considerable evidence of the contrariness of that stance.

Brooks continues to dance on the head of a pin, wavering from a solid opinion based on facts in favor of smug punditry that he won't be accountable for ten minutes after its written.

It would appear that the Republican neocons and the David Brooks of the world would love to have Clinton as the next president as she is so ovbiously one of them (a corporate shill)) The major media figured this out years ago and have promoted her presidency ever since. Unfortunately Salon has too. I wish that you, Mr. Greenwald, as a popular writer for Salon, would address this bias in your commentaries and with your co-workers.

One more point. You quote Brooks as (twice) describing Americans as "hegemons" There is no such thing. Thank you for exposing this idiot. The Anchorage Daily News runs his columns regularly. Of course they are owned by a Murdoch -like media conglomerate. As you know Murdoch holds fundraisers for Clinton. So much for the FEC and restoring free press if she becomes president.

A grim sign is the way the ACLU, normally an ally of progressive Democrats,"

The ACLU is NOT an ally of the proressive Democrat. It is an ally of civil liberties for all citizens, andyou onyhave to look at teh cses they have fought to uderstand this. It may appear they favor Democrats becasue Democrats are more interested in protecting our civil liberties.

I disagree with some of what the author says about David Brooks. We all know he is a conservative columnist, but he is not right wing fanatic. Some times I agree with him and some times not. I and find his analysis very reasonable. As far as Daily Kos I think they are full of hot air. I was curious so watched them on CSPAN at their convention. I was not impressed. I found them to be full of hot air with no realistic solutions. Then I went to thier web site and it seems to be just self absorbed chatting. Only ACTION wil change what is going on in this country. You can chat all you want and it will not help. I do disagree Clinton has the Demcratic nomination sewed up but she just has the press coverge sewed up.

"She was also, last week, one of only 25 Senators to vote against condemning MoveOn. Obviously, one can question the motives and sincerity of her doing all of this. But whatever else is true, as she runs for President, she has been moving steadily towards the "blogger/leftist" view on Iraq that (David) Brooks dishonestly claims she is repudiating." Glenn Greenwald

I still don't know that I trust her, but in this case I have to say, "Thank (Insert major deity or paradigm of personal belief here)!

I strongly support Ellen Weiss’ decision to set the ground rules for the NPR interview with Bush. Juan Williams, who I admire, was quoted as saying: "I was stunned by the decision to turn their backs on him [the President] and to turn their backs on me."

For me Williams' statement has provided the answer to the puzzle of why the press (and many Democratic leaders) have been so often misguided during the Bush presidency. Most members of the Fourth Estate and many Democrats have failed repeatedly to deal with this administration as equals because, as Williams said recently about Bill O'Reilly, they are concerned that they will be "marginalized."

We depend upon this competitive drive, but this drive has been subverted by the fear of being “marginalized.” This I feel has played a major role in enabling many of the tragic errors in judgment by this administration.

If we believe in free markets why can't we accept the fact that we have no right to control middle east oil. When we try to control a commodity that we don't own by force we are employing imperialism when we would be much better served by relying on a free market. Oil will flow to its customers since it is of no economic value until it begins its journey to markets. We may not like the way the owners of a desirable commodity market the same but we should adapt and not resort to abandoning our free market approach in commerce.

Our middle east policy is not based on economic realities but is driven by neocon fantasy. We should abandon all use of economic trade restrictions and sanctions in foreign policy since such actions violate good and effective free trade.

For those that disagree with Laffer ....

Isn't it interesting that quite a few concerns increase their revenue offering products and services for less money while making it up in volume?

This is possible in some situations at price points assuming a free and rational market (along with a host of other assumptions). But Sh**t-fer-brains here would also have to acknowledge that at some point, probably even before when you reduce prices below cost-to-manufacture, increased volume won't do a thing (except reduce net profits), and dRev/dPrice will be less than dCost/dPrice.

No one disagrees that at some point dRev/dTaxrate may be negative (and this is one part of Laffer's "brilliant" insight). The question, just as in the revenue/price curve in Sh**ter's example, is what is the shape of the curve in the region we're in. The endpoint(s) say nothing about this. This was the substancer of Martin Gardner's critique. To answer that question, you need a lot more information and analysis than Laffer produced. Then there's the question of whether just the revenue effects are the only consideration of importance (for instance, increased gummint revenue may lead to "bigger gummint", a 'no-no' to some folks, but it may lead to fuller employment too....).

I'd note that one of the recent Nobel economics laureate's work was on the disparity between the "rational market" and people's choices. People make decisions with far-from-perfect information as well as far-from-perfect rationality. Funny that they overlooked Laffer's kindergarten "insight".....

Cheers,