By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Why did Brooks invoke Coulter?

One of my favorite conservative pundits, New York Times columnist David Brooks, goes off the rails today, writing, “Every cliché Ann Coulter throws at the Democrats is gloriously fulfilled by the Democratic health care bills.”

Here’s a list of Coulter witticisms about the Democrats, compiled by Media Matters:

  • “Democrats are racist, and they’re just stunned to find a black man who can walk and talk.”
  • “The Democrats want Saddam back.”
  • The Democratic Party is “a party that supports killing, lying, adultery, thievery, envy.”
  • “[Y]ou just expect Democrats to side with Al Qaeda.”
  • “I think the problem the Democrats have is, no one really believes they’re authentic patriots.”
  • “I understand why you are so terrified of letting us point out what racists the Democrats are and how they have a big problem with black women.”

As for health care, the issue at hand, I can’t find much of anything Coulter has said directly about the subject, which makes it doubly puzzling as to why Brooks brought her up in the first place. At AnnCoulter.com, though, I did find this gem from 2007:

  • “The only ‘crisis’ in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little…. [T]he Democratic Party treats doctors like they’re Klan members.”

Every so often Brooks, as sharp an analyst as we have, feels the need to re-establish his conservative credentials in the most boneheaded way imaginable. Today was one of those days.

Previous

After the deluge

Next

Charges against Gates to be dropped

12 Comments

  1. Bill Baar

    Your overestimating his sharpness.

  2. Rick in Duxbury

    You're entitled to your opinion, just like Brooks. "Invoking" Coulter is like invoking Olbermann, people long ago included a healthy grain of salt to their comments. For every "witticism" compiled by Media Matters, analogous screeds could be pointed out by right-wing blogs. So what? How is it productive to point out incorrect opinions rather than debating them on the substance? Are any of Brooks's statistics or poll numbers not accurate? IMHO, there is too much on the table to get hung up on whether a blonde bomb-thrower looks good in a little black dress. Too much heat, not enough light.

  3. The Arranger

    I read it another way. He's basically saying that the Democrats' health care proposals are so out there, they give credence to Coulter's ravings. I take it as a direct insult to Democrats by way of a backhanded slap at Coulter…along the lines of Dice-K's pitching this year has made me nostalgic about Matt Young.Bob in Peabody

  4. mike_b1

    Maybe he has a thing for ghouls?

  5. Don, American

    I remember that a few years ago doctors played golf one day every week and they all owned yachts. We haven't heard about that so much lately, because it's now the hospitals that are gouging us. All the doctors have now are the occasional perks they receive from the drug companies, because the insurance companies have derailed the gravy train.

  6. mike_b1

    Don, not sure what hospital you go to, but my wife is a physician at Mass General and she is strictly barred from receiving any such graft. She can't even get a free meal these days. Compare that to our fine press corps, which dines gratis at pretty much every sporting event.

  7. Peter Porcupine

    DK – it's easier to use a convenient straw-person rather than have to LISTEN to a conservative writer; it's a stereotypical shorthand.I never see anybody referring to that wacky Charles Krauthammer or Hugh Hewitt..

  8. Bill Baar

    I never see anybody referring to that wacky Charles Krauthammer or Hugh Hewitt…I've become far more conservative over the years, and especially after 911, but Coulter, Ingram, Rush had little to do with it. I've never read or really listened to them.But I make a point to read Krauthammer and Hewitt, and watch Krauthammer on those last 15 mins at Fox.Listen to the left though and you'd think Coulter, Ingram, and Rush were it for the right, and I think they're really a small part. A really small part when it comes to ideas.

  9. mike_b1

    Charles Krauthammer is wacky, however.

  10. The Arranger

    Bill Baar wrote: "Listen to the left though and you'd think Coulter, Ingram, and Rush were it for the right, and I think they're really a small part. A really small part when it comes to ideas."The right would have you think Rev. Al Sharpton defines the American left.The Arranger

  11. lkcape

    Al Sharpton thinks that he defines the American left….as do any number his fellow "victims".

  12. Bill Baar

    The right would have you think Rev. Al Sharpton defines the American left.Not when there is Nancy Pelosi out there…….credit Sharpton for coming to Obama's backyard to protest abusive Chicago cops.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén