David Brooks: I don’t like the influence of money any more than the next person. It magnifies transparency and unreason. The people who give tend to be tribal in their affiliations and they hate people who compromise and stray from party orthodoxy. The way to rise to leadership in Congress is through fundraising and so it is generally the most partisan who make it to the top.
But the leaders of neither party have the moral authority to criticize the other on this score. To do so means ignoring the mote in your own eye. And it is depressing to see Obama and others going off on this jag. There must be other ways of firing up the Democratic base. Is there no substantive issue they can talk about?
Because to David Brooks, anonymous donors buying elections with hundreds of millions of dollars with no limit and no disclosure is not an susbatantial issue because "both sides do it."
Only if Brooks wasn't such an intellectually lazy gimboid, he'd know that Democrats are the ones pushing for more disclosure, which was...surprise!...blocked by the GOP and the DISCLOSE Act went poof. He'd also realize that just short of half of us are particularly concerned about this, so it might in fact be a "substantive issue".
Brooks dismisses the evidence wholesale, and he's doing it because he's either beneath him to check, or his job to kill the idea that it matters.
Either prospect is disturbing.
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2 comments:
He works for a newspaper, which earns the money that pays his salary by selling ads. Newspapers do not discount space for political ads so they are the most profitable ones of all.
He has a direct financial interest in distracting readers from this basic fact.
to be fair, brooks is also a major asshat.
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