David Brooks Advising Obama?

David Brooks is the kind of conservative I can read. He appeals to reason, maintains a laudable sense of consistency and fairness and proposes policies and ideas that attempt to help the whole country, not "the base" or the political expediency of the day. It was with some anticipation, then, that I read his recent column advising President Obama to tone down his rhetoric.

In many ways, he delivered in all the ways he generally does. His point was not to shoot the president down or to launch ad hominem attacks, but to suggest that Obama ought not abandon the virtue of calm and reason in the thick of political dogfights. Most of the time I would agree with this advice.

But I'm one the people who wants to see Obama make some hay these days. It's clear that Republicans are not trying to govern responsibly, preferring instead to do and say only what will get them short-term boosts in popularity. Too many Republican leaders, Mitch McConnell most of all, want only to attack in the interest of the next election. They are demagogues and bullies and need to be called on their nastiness.  In other words, it's not mere name-calling when Obama raises the negativity of his rhetoric. It's a form of leadership.

A Question on the Occupy Wall Street Movement

This is a remarkable moment. That people in so many American cities have taken to the streets at once may be unprecedented.

The central criticism of the movement so far has been that it is pointless -- that there is no agenda. And that may be.

But I wonder what effect it is having. Who is being pressured by the camps and occupations? Whose interests are affected? For me the issue is not about an agenda, but a target.

I plan to have my Dissent class work on this next week.

What the TEA Party Thinks is Success

Our political system faces a serious danger. It's not exactly new -- the United States has confronted similar problems periodically throughout its history -- but that does not make it any less severe.

The danger is the foolish, obstructionist behavior of people calling themselves "TEA Party conservatives." These people take pride in stopping progress, in ignoring empirical fact, in disrupting rational dialogue. They appeal to an ugly form of "patriotism" that emphasizes exclusion and strife over cooperation. They pretend that anger is a political platform rather than an emotion.

Take, for example, Michelle Bachman, who wants to make being gay or having an abortion illegal, but also wants to make it illegal to call for Sharia law. In other words, she wants to impose her religion while making it sound scary foir anyone else to try the same. She wants to protect Americans against those evil-doers who clean hotels in El Paso. She wants government to disappear completely while also ensuring that the economy grows. These are contradictory positions, but they sound good separately and they appeal to a certain irrational us-against-them mentality that drives many of her supporters.

How about Rick Perry, who insists that his environmental deregulation in Texas helped clean up the air? Not so, says "Larry Soward, a Perry-appointed member of the Texas agency's three-member ruling commission from 2001 to 2007....

Soward said that even though air quality in Texas has improved during Perry's tenure, the credit goes to increasing federal regulations, not state initiatives. With the budget cuts, the agency "simply won't have the resources, budgetary or staff-wise, to really provide a rigorous scrutiny over air quality permits or more rigorous inspections or enforcement."

Even that bastion of left-leaning MSM silliness, Business Week, can see how ridiculous Perry's claims are.And like Bachman, he tends to focus on how creepy "others" are: in his case, he finds Mitt Romney scary because he's a Mormon.

This is not leadership. We can't pull ourselves from the quagmire by crowing every time we avoid confronting our problems. Immigration is not the problem, and gay couples are not the problem. No rational person thinks they are.

Leadership consists in standing up to jingoism and racism and obstructionism and pointing us forward. The TEA Party is dangerous not only because its own ideas are stupid, but because it prevents less stupid ideas from coming forward.

President Obama and John Boehner and others have to make it clear that we will not tolerate calls by bullies for us to lash out while ignoring the problems we face.They have to confront the ignorant, dangerous voices of the TEA Party and make it clear that adults are in charge