Usually, I don't read Brooks, despite (or because of) the fact he's supposed to be the "conservative that liberals (progressives?) read." (I do hear him on U.S. National Public Radio, where he puts the "con" into "conservative.") Since Louis printed the mind-grabbing first sentence, I made an exception. The article seems incoherent, as if he phoned it in. I can imagine him telling some flunky which boilerplate to use after the first sentence. He never explains what he means by "right-wing" or "extremist."
>From the column, "right-wing" seems to mean balanced-budget fundamentalism, a version of neoliberalism that Obama has embraced since his short "Blue period" (in which he followed "Blue-state" Keynesian sensibilities in a moderate way). If your goal is to balance the federal budget, Obama's budget seems much more successful than Ryan's hand-waving claim to do so: he's a "better" neoliberal than Ryan. The word "extremist" seems totally out of place. In U.S. politics (and in the template that U.S. pundits impose on the rest of the world), the U.S. president _cannot_ be extremist. After all, the most important factor determining the nature of the political "center" is the program and politics of the president. Here all it says is that Brooks doesn't like Obama's budget because the latter doesn't accept his priorities. On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > NY Times April 12, 2013 > Op-Ed Columnist > Bold on Both Ends > By DAVID BROOKS > > It’s time to entertain the possibility that President Obama is a > right-wing extremist. After all, look at where he’s taking the country > over his second term. > > (clip) > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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