From a friend, sent to the NY Times:
To the editor:
David Brooks glowingly describes the three GOP front runners as "a pastor, a businessman and a war hero," calling them "the three most evocative Republican leadership models," and the Democratic front runners as "a daughter of the feminist movement, a beneficiary of the civil rights movement and a self-styled proletarian," calling them " powerful Democratic categories."
What Brooks is really saying is: the Democratic field is "composed of two entitlement beneficiaries and a hypocrite."
That's about as fair as describing the GOP field as a Gomer Pyle-like anti-science religious fanatic, a greedy businessman and cultist, and a bad pilot (after all, George McGovern was a war hero too, but he didn't get shot down).
Chelsea Clinton may be a "daughter of the feminist movement," but Hillary? She was on the front lines in the 1960s and she is a Yale Law school graduate and an attorney. Clarence Thomas may have been a beneficiary of the civil rights movement, but Obama? Unlike Thomas, he was clearly smart enough to reach Harvard on his own. As for calling Edwards a "self-styled proletarian," what would Brooks call a horse-fearing child of blue-blood privilege and a Yale legacy student who buys a dusty "ranch" in Crawford, affects a drawl and arranges brush-clearing photo ops? Probably "an evocative Republican leadership model."
Sincerely,
Michael
Wyckoff, NJ"
