I Am Not David Brooks: A Reply to His NY Times Op-Ed Column

David Brooks' misguided opinion piece in today's New York Times regarding reaction to the terriorist slaughter of Charlie Hebdou's staff requires reply.

David Brooks
(Image: nytimes.com)

His first assertion compares the French journal Charlie Hebdou to a flippant American college publication. This insulting observation suggests a parallel between frat house humor and the determined political satire of those skilled professionals twice or three times the age of an American college undergraduate. Hmmm...maybe Mr. Brooks is just another old fart who doesn't get it. Then again, in subsequent paragraphs, the Times' man on the right-wing pulse characterizes Charlie Hebdou's content as "puerile."

Ah, but the Times' version of a "moderate Republican" voice is not content with cheap shots against the Gallic dead. He has the chutzpah to compare the massacre of the French writers and editors to those professors on physically safe US campuses whose controversial voices were hushed or hounded by cowardly university administrators. These episodes simply do not parallel the Paris murders in depth or impact. He also ignored how Charlie Hebdou's editor required police protection for years, simply because the French editor exercised his right to free speech.

Brooks's coup de grace is his separation of the intelligent world into an "adults' table" and a "kids' table." Amazingly, Brooks breezily asserts that "establishment organs" command the grown-up seating. This frankly flies in the face of experience, whether one disbelieves bullshit from Fox News or horseshit from The Huffington Post. He then has the nerve to lump Ann Coulter and Bill Maher together into the children's zone. From that statement, one can only assume that the late Charlie Hebdou staff members deserve high chairs and bibs; in the meantime, Brooks would presumably sit still for rants from alleged adults such as Mort Zuckerman, John McLaughlin, and Melissa Harris-Perry.

How can anyone respect Brooks' line of reasoning? In the end, Brooks ironically created a parody of a cogent argument, more in tune with Charlie Hebdou than sacred cow publications he arrogantly assumes hold exclusive rights to "adult" perspectives.