it's the election all over again. you never saw obama campaigning in california or connecticut. he was in ohio, indiana and even some improbable states. he campaigns to the persuadable middle. there's nothing to be lost and everything to be gained from giving Brooks access. Flattery gets you everywhere in politics and reporting and Brooks is especially prone. He ha the biggest megaphone to the most on the fence group in Brooks' readers. So looking at it that way, he's the most logical to get access.

There is nothing abnormal about this.

Obama's political views - and certainly those of the geitner, goolsbee ilk - are very similar to Brooks'. They share beliefs in behaviorist critiques of the poor, opposition to overt government control, and the general tenets of social liberalism (remember, Brooks does not hate gays and represents the milder wing of his party on immigration and so forth).

His world view is that of a pragmatic neoliberal, which is not very different from Obama's. On the other hand, its clear that Obama does not share either the economic, political or ideological views of, say, a Krugman.

Not surprising.

And Spavis:

Can we stop imputing Obama's decisions to mystical powers of political apotheosis.

I heard the same tired arguments about his bipartisan overtures and mismanagement of the stimulus: it was all some grand mind control game to which only Obama and his handlers could pull off. Well, it turns out they were mere mortals and should generally be treated as such.

I don't think you need to impute any mystical powers to see that this makes obvious strategic sense. Brooks represents the republican opposition Obama WISHES he was facing. He's not an idealogue. He's quite bright. He's capable of being persuaded. He's publicly decried the direction the party is going. If Obama wants to broaden his consensus to take up a bigger fraction of the total political spectrum, people of Brook's ilk are exactly where the incremental gains are to be made.

i think it's much more likely that Obama would rather turn the sentiment of Brooks and his readers by giving him exclusives that Obama and Brooks being ideological BFFs and that's the reason why he's getting exclusives.

And yeah with the stimulus Obama did try to ask for one thing to end up with another, but that's expected in the circuitous route of legislation. But they didn't get what they wanted for lack of extra sensory perception, it's just Congressional machinations per the norm. It was the first big bill from a new president and a rejiggered Congress. I do't think the bill ended up the way *anyone* would have hoped or predicted.

"...anchored by an exclusive interview with Arne Duncan."

I don't know about this. Is Arne Duncan not doing interviews? I did a Google news search of "'Arne Duncan' interview" and I got a pretty good number of recent hits. I guess maybe he's not doing them with columnists? I don't know. I'd like to hear about columnists at the big op-ed pages not getting interviews before I really buy this. The whole argument is confounded by the fact that most op-ed columnists are lazy and don't even bother to do interviews.

I'm not sure the rest, which I'm highly skeptical of for other reasons, follows without that premise.

He's not an idealogue. He's quite bright. He's capable of being persuaded.

Really? Yeah, he's more civil than the Limbaugh wing of the party, but are his beliefs and reasoning are different are any meaningful way? Limbaugh says Obama is ruining the economy because Obama is a bad person and Brooks says Obama means well but his policies will unintentionally probably make the depression worse, but they both seem to believe in Hooverish economic policies, don't they?

I never claimed that Brooks doesn't subscribe to an ideology. Sure, he's a conservative, that's the whole point here. By my statement, "he's not an idealogue", I mean that he's not so slavishly adherent to certain views that he's utterly immune to all argument to the contrary. His call and response with the Obama administration in his recent columns is exactly what I'm talking about.

I still think there's a wide gulf between Brooks and Limbaugh on a whole host of levels. As far as neo-hooverism is concerned, Brooks at least partial rejection of that was the essence of his scathing criticism of Jindal's speech. He fully acknowledges that people expect the government to do something now, and rightly so.

I don't agree with Brooks on all sorts of things, but if you had to pick a columnist out there who represented the more reasonable and potentially persuadable side of the right wing, he's as good a choice as any.

I don't agree with Brooks on all sorts of things, but if you had to pick a columnist out there who represented the more reasonable and potentially persuadable side of the right wing, he's as good a choice as any.

This is true, but I hate it. Because Brooks is one of the most making-shit-up columnists out there. Seriously. He just makes shit up, and then claims that it involves evidence which doesn't exist. It's a fine strategic decision on Obama's part, but unfortunate for those of us who care about reality.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/david_brooks_spending_freeze_is_insane.php

Fair enough, I forgot about that. Thanks, goethean.

So... maybe all those Brooks columns I read where he made asinine, maddening arguments occurred because he was given unfettered access to the White House and was faithfully dictating the opinions of Bush's advisors.

So he's less of a complete moron and more of a... dictaphone. I guess it's an improvement.

I spent the entire election doing exactly what you're dong here. I spent it second-guessing every little move the guy made and wrote letters of micromanagement to the campaign, correcting what I saw as mistakes, and writing similar screeds to the op/eds.

I was wrong every time. The guy was two to three moves ahead of me for the whole campaign. It also put him at least that many move ahead of the McCain team. I suspect that the Obama team has a better handle on things than I do, at this point.

Just as the Obama administration is characterizing Limbaugh as the class of Republican who is not worth engaging in a rational conversation, perhaps they are offering up Brooks as an instance of one who is.

Agreed that Obama needs to peel off the noncrazy, "moderate" Republican faction, and bring it into the reality-based camp. Let the crazies and the Krauthammers and the Limbaughs and the Kristols and the Douthats run around in their own crazy-world mess, but keep your eye on the middle segment.

Why should it be a surprise that Obama likes Brooks?

Of course there's an affinity there.

Brooks is a Republican hack columnist.

Obama is the best Republican president of the 21st century.

(Not that the bar was set terribly high on that one.)

(But still.)

you're missing the university of chicago connection...brooks was an undergrad there (and was thoroughly marked by his association) and obama a prof (and was thoroughly marked by his association). brooks and obama share a small-c conservative intellectual style characteristic of the institution, as well as some typical intellectual concerns of hyde parkers.

as much as i loathe brooks, i have to admit that this makes sense.

professor mcbobo ( tom tommorow) is an absolute moron, however -

i can imagine him being so excited to finally get invited to sit at the cool kids table that he would forget how much he used to write snarky diatribes about them.

since he is a decent writer (in terms of being able to turn a phrase, NOT in terms of quality of content) and has a wide appeal, it would be to obama's benefit to turn him over to his side.

so yeah, let him eat lunch at the cool table. why not?

Actually the "four senior administration officials" appear to've included the Big Cheese, according to the latest Brooks/Collins chat piece. So, yeah -- Brooks is getting remarkable access. Not big surprise: it's sounded like the White House is writing speeches basically with him as the audience.

Obama said he'd work with the other side when it was possible. On the economy, he can work with Brooks.

Actually, I think Obama is willing to engage anybody who will approach a debate in a reasoned and sane way, whether there is much agreement or not. As nearly the entire right has shifted to sloganeering, this leaves pretty slim pickings.

Obama is shooting himself in the foot. I've not seen one iota of substance to indicate that the Republican party is interested in building a consensus about anything.

In fact, he's looking kinda weak after allowing members of his own cabinet, namely Rahn Emanuel, shoving him around and caving in on Charles Freeman.

Brooks' weakness as an idealogue was always that he was intelligent and found it hard to lie to himself for money. That's the problem for the Goldbergs and Kristols they can lie to themselves all day as long as checks keep coming. I think Brooks has his eye on becoming the next Walter Lippman and for that you need access and basic intellectual honesty. Obama, clever guy that he is has spotted this and is acting accordingly. Basically it's good....we need a another Walter Lippman.

Lets not forget that Brooks was one of the first columnists to publicly suggest that Obama should run for president in Oct of 2006.

Run, Barack, Run
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/opinion/19brooks.html

Obama works with the center and the right.

Just not the left.