From driftglass:
Every now and then a nondescript little man from Wingnut Central Command shows up at Mr. David Brooks’ door to remind him that it is time once again to renew his Conservative credentials. It is a brief but critical ritual upon which Mr. Brooks’ entire professional life literally depends. After all, it isn’t the word “American” or “author” or “political and cultural commentator” in his CV that The New York Times shells out crazy money to slap on it’s op-ed page every week:
David Brooks is a conservative American author as well as political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times.
It’s the word “conservative” they’re renting. It is the word “conservative” which has given Mr. Brooks entree to the corridors of power, gigs on NPR, PBS and NBC, book contracts and a job-for-life at the NYT which pays for Mr. Brooks’ various hearths and homes and travels and book tours.
So every now and then he needs to get his “conservative” card punched again. And of course, given the nature of Conservatism, this means he needs to say something horrible and blatantly untrue in some public forum somewhere. This time around, the forum was The News Hour, and the horrible and blatantly untrue thing was this: