Smug Bastard Cabal

So, Who's the Rube Again, David

David Brooks has an article up in the Times decrying just how far left the Obama administration is. He makes a couple of semi-interesting points. But, one comment sticks out:

Moderates now find themselves betwixt and between. On the left, there is a president who appears to be, as Crook says, “a conviction politician, a bold
progressive liberal.” On the right, there are the Rush Limbaugh brigades. The
only thing more scary than Obama’s experiment is the thought that it might fail
and the political power will swing over to a Republican Party that is currently
unfit to wield it.

With all due respect to Mr. Brooks, I think he might want to be a little more reticent in judging the fitness of conservatives to weild power. Mr. Brooks may be surprised at the leftward slant of the Obama administration. But the very "Limbaugh brigades" that he deems himself fit to look down on predicted that the administration would behave this way before Obama was elected president. To my mind, political judgement should be one of, if not the, primary criteria by which we judge the fitness of particular political actors to weild the levers of power. And on this criteria, Mr. Brooks has seems demonstrably less fit than the "Limbaugh brigades".