David Brooks on Obama -- Wow !!!

David Brooks, conservative columnist for the New York Times and TV commentator, had this to say today about our current candidates in an interview with The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg. I'm going to quote a few excerpts and encourage you to read the whole interview at www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/david-brooks-sarah-palin_n_133001.html

Brooks called Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican party," and he decried her anti-intellectualism and compared her to President Bush in that regard. Contrasting the respect for intellect and ideas that was true of Ronald Reagen and other conservatives of that era, he says "there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices." He concluded that "she is 'absolutely not' ready to be president or vice president."

Brooks had this to say (and more) about Obama's intellect:

Obama has the great intellect. I was interviewing Obama a couple years ago, and I'm getting nowhere with the interview, it's late in the night, he's on the phone, walking off the Senate floor, he's cranky. Out of the blue I say, 'Ever read a guy named Reinhold Niebuhr?' And he says, 'Yeah.' So i say, 'What did Niebuhr mean to you?' For the next 20 minutes, he gave me a perfect description of Reinhold Niebuhr's thought, which is a very subtle thought process based on the idea that you have to use power while it corrupts you. And I was dazzled, I felt the tingle up my knee as Chris Matthews would say.

He goes on to praise not just his intellect but his "powers of social perception" and his ability to surround himself with superb staff people and advisers.

Ralph