David Brooks, Fiscal Restraint, Culture Wars, and Hollywood

David Brooks has a good column today about a fundamental American value: fiscal restraint. He points out that over the course of our history, our materialism has been balanced by a countervailing thrift. He points to the old WASPs, immigrant families who sacrificed for their kids, etc. Then he throws out some numbers about how in debt we are as a country, and how we are going to have to experience a major cultural shift if we are to get our fiscal house in order. He ascribes equal blame to both sides of the ideological spectrum, conveniently forgetting that it was Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and supply-side economics that have gotten in to this mess, while Bill Clinton managed to balance the budget. Other than willful blindness, I think he's basically right.

I am an eternal optimist, so it's not hard for me to find some encouraging signs; the decline and fall of the insane demand for luxury that has besotted us and driven developers to erect ever-more fabulous monuments to consumption. But I find the most encouraging sign in what may be the most unlikely, and yet the most likely, of places: Hollywood.

I say "most unlikely" because Hollywood is about the farthest from anyone's mind when looking for examples of monetary sanity; this is a community rather well known for spending lavishly.

But I saw "most likely" because Hollywood is also where many great trends get started. One trend in the box office this year has been the decline and fall of a fair number of movie stars and their potential for opening movies and making millions. So far this year, Duplicity, starring Julia Roberts, State of Play, starring Russell Crowe, and, just this past weekend, Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis, have all done much worse than expected. These people are not earning their $15-20 million paychecks.

Which raises the question: were they really worth $20 million? Presumably, yes; movie studio executives aren't that stupid, and, in fact, they tend to be fairly intellectually disciplined when calculating their bottom lines. Which is one reason Sandra Bullock starred in The Proposal, rather than Julia Roberts: Julia wouldn't cut her $20 million fee, Sandra Bullock was perfectly willing to do it for less, and wound up with the biggest hit of her career.

Movie stars are no more or less greedy than regular people; if I had the chance to make $20 million for 3-6 months of work, you damn well better believe I would take it. They are also no more or less greedy today than they were in previous generations; the nature of human greed has not changed in the last few years. Technology has, and with it certain aspects of the Hollywood business model. It's physically possible to distribute movies today in a way that wasn't possible even 30 years ago. A major studio release generally hits 3,000 screens on opening weekend; Star Wars, by contrast, opened on May 25th ,1977, on a grand total of 43 screens.

Movie stars have been making millions of dollars a movie because they could. Audiences, however, are also ever-more discriminating. The fact that Bruce Willis is in Surrogates is not a guarantee that it will be a good movie. Moviegoers are shade more conscious of what kind of value they are getting for their entertainment dollar. Studio executives are also, I hope, more conscious of the value of their budgets. There is some reason to be optimistic in the recent firing of Dick Cook from Disney. Bob Iger has made it clear that he isn't all that happy with Disney's slate of movies these days. Surrogates is a Disney movie. Bob Iger was worried that Disney is not making good movies, so he fired the head of the studio, Cook. Looks like Iger made the right call.

Money does strange things to peoples' brains: it takes a certain a certain amount of intelligence to make money, but too much money can give people the impression that they are smarter than they are, which leads them to making stupid decisions. We're in the post-stupid decisions phase in this country now. Too much money led way too many people to think that they were smarter than they are, which led them to make stupid decisions. This recession is a wake-up call. The generation that survived the Great Depression was a frugal one.

Money also has a strange way of convincing people that they are worth more than they really are. Certain movie stars seem to think that. They think of themselves as being worth vast sums of money, when their worth is really determined by that insanely fickle entity known as the audience.

What the market giveth, the market taketh away. We are seeing a certain rebalancing of the equation of inequality, at least in Hollywood. Personally, however, I think the best solution to rebalancing inequality is the old-fashioned one: tax the rich.

David Brooks, advocate for activism

David Brooks, the conservative who occasionally thinks like the liberal he once was, writes about the changes in strategy in the war in Afghanistan. He explains Condi Rice's transformation:

In this new world, [Condi] continued, it is impossible to draw neat lines between security, democratization and development efforts. She called for a transformational diplomacy, in which State Department employees would do less negotiating and communiqué-writing. Instead, they’d be out in towns and villages doing broad campaign planning with military colleagues, strengthening local governments and implementing development projects.

Apparently this realization was a ground-up thing: the guys on the ground, the lieutenants and captains actually fighting the war, were the first to realize that the application of force was not enough; they needed to win over the hearts and minds of the people on the ground to prevent the Taliban from taking over.

This makes perfect sense to me, I just hope that our troops actually can implement this kind of change and make it stick.

It also reminds me of something. Let's see, belief in government's ability to improve the lives of citizens, requiring a dedicated commitment to developing the ability to deliver competent, professional governance.

What does that sound like?

Oh, yeah, LIBERALISM.

Thanks for the help, Mr. Brooks.

Sarah Palin: The more we know . . .

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama have a couple of things in common. They both jumped into the national spotlight when they gave a speech at their party's national convention. Both have less on their resumes than would be ideal.

But after that, there's one powerful difference: the more you hear about Barack Obama, the more there is to like about him. He's got a great education, he has a strong work record that has prepared him a number of different ways for this campaign and for being president, he has great managerial skills and he's a damn good strategist.

The more we hear about Sarah Palin, however, the LESS there is to like. HuffPost rounds up some of the commentators - notably, some conservatives - who are not just disappointed with her, but angry at McCain for betraying their trust in him. Andrew Sullivan is nothing short of furious, and has been documenting her lies on an almost hourly basis.

There are almost too many shortcomings to repeat: she has almost no experience, she lies repeatedly, she's clueless about foreign policy, she's petty and vindictive. Etc., etc. She has inspired the base, but the longer this campaign goes on, the more liberals and moderates are not just upset, but thoroughly angry.

David Brooks sums up the issues very well today. Conservatism, he reminds us, once used to be unabashedly elitist, but has also had a strain of populism. Most important, Brooks reminds us of a very basic truth:

It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills.

No kidding. Guess what, so is rocket science and neurosurgery.

This is why commentators like Brooks are turning on Palin: they have worked long and hard to get to where they are. They are elitists as much as anybody. So when Palin dismisses expertise and experience, she is dismissing them as well as politicians in Washington and the liberal elites of Hollywood.

I've said it before, and I will say it again. The right's enthusiasm for Palin erupted instantly and blossomed very quickly. She became a hero to many people over night. The reaction against her is building more slowly, but it is every bit as powerful.

People like David Brooks and David Ignatius are on the leading edge. By definition, they pay close attention to the details of political campaigns. It will take some time for all of these details to filter into the public consciousness. But the broad outlines of the narrative are being shaped. McCain's friends in the press are his friends no more. And they are read by millions of people.

David Brooks on debt and responsibility

Today David Brooks worked a little of his I-used-to-be-liberal-now-I'm-a-sensitive-conservatvie magic, and comes up with a very good column on the problem of debt in American society. He finds a middle ground between the people who blame society, in the form of predatory lenders, rapacious banks, etc., for our ills, and those who demand that individuals in trouble be held accountable for their errors. A third way, if you will.

People are responsible for their actions, writes Brooks, but they are also strongly influenced by the society around them, which shapes and molds their subconscious. But when they make a conscious decision, they return the favor, shaping and molding the society around them.

It's a personal thing AND a cultural thing, which is not a contradiction, because neither of those is static, neither personality nor society. It makes a lot of sense, and is, thankfully, reason to appreciate the fact that the man has one of the most coveted spots in journalism, on the Op-Ed page of The NY Times. This is a somewhat complex topic, and he explains it cogently in one column, with some nice color.

What he DOES NOT DO is assign blame where it really belongs: at the top, with the man who believed that he could deliver Americans tax cuts without asking them to pay for them, George W. Bush. If anyone set the tone for our culture's psychotic relationship with debt over the last few years, it was him. Talk about living beyond your means.

As much as I appreciate David Brooks' excellent writing ability, and his willingness to take on subjects that defy categorization, he will have a lot more credibility writing about accountability when he takes his fair share of responsibility for enabling the most irresponsible man any of us have ever seen in the White House.

David Brooks is losing it

I occasionally finding myself thinking new and interesting thots after reading David Brooks. He seems like a decent kind of guy, the kind of conservative who agrees with liberals on the goals of improving the world in various ways, but disagrees on the methods. And sometimes he writes columns that are not ideological or political, but just observations, and those are usually particularly thought-provoking.

At the beginning of the primary season, he seemed very impressed by Barack Obama, appreciating him as a deep and sensitive thinker.

Not anymore, apparently. He is no longer drinking the Kool Aid. In his column today, he's like a man waking up from a bad dream, terrified that was disturbed in might actually come true. Barack Obama might actually be a sensitive intellectual AND a great politician!

as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

The first problem with this analysis is the idea that Obama has to be a split personality to be at once a high-minded idealist and an effective, pragmatic politician. That's a convenient, black-and-white way of looking at the world. It's also an idea that has been consistently reinforced by the Bush Administration, which was staffed by people who were NEITHER high-minded idealists NOR effective, pragmatic
politicians. How is it possible to transcend this apparent divide between starry-eyed romanticism and hard-edged realism?

We Democrats have a name for people who can hold these two apparently contradictory ideas in their heads at the same time.

We call them "professionals."

This may come as a shock to David Brooks, but many people in this country are both good at their jobs, and decent human beings. Some of them are both really good at their jobs, and people of high ethical and moral standards.

This may be a landmark column, for at least a couple of reasons. First, Brooks, normally a very level-headed man, is practically in full melt-down mode here. He's not just worried, he's panicked. I think that's great for us. It shows that Obama is already changing the game, and redefining the political landscape, so that Republicans are scared of Democrats, instead of the other way around.

The second reason is that he makes it obvious how innovative Republicans can be at coming up with new and exciting smear tactics. This column is just riddled with snide innuendo: "the Scarlett Johansson set." I like Scarlett Johansson, but Brooks is just using her here as a symbol of young (blonde) Hollywood, presumably dissolute and shallow. He also references, just for good measure, the character Ari in Entourage, who is an agent, the slickest of the slick. He keeps repeating the phrase "under the truck," implying that Obama has betrayed various people and causes, and apparently unaware that the phrase is "under the bus." And he's from Chicago. Never mind that it is in the heartland, allegedly where many good, responsible, middle-class Americans come from, it is from now on to be knows as the city of tough politicos, the kind with sharp elbows.

PQuincy, a blogger at TPM, has an excellent post taking apart the factual absurdities of Brooks's column. I am referring readers to that because it would take me an hour to catalog the banalities in this column.

What's clear is that Obama has gotten under Brooks' skin. He's faking him out. And we still have 4 1/2 months to go before the election. Republicans are not worried about Obama. They are terrified.

MLK Post #2

In the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama, I want to post something that encourages open-mindedness and healing across the ideological divide. David Brooks has a very good column about Martin Luther King today. He actually went to the hotel where he was shot to write this column. You've got to give him props for that. He ends with this line:

Martin Luther King Jr. at least left behind a model of how to repair the social fabric. He was scholarly, formal, assertive and meticulously self-controlled in public. If Barack Obama’s presidential campaign represents anything, it is the triumph of King’s early-60s style of activism over the angry and reckless late-60s style. King was in crisis when he was gunned down. But his inspiration is outlasting his critics.

It's a conservative's appreciation for the man. Conservatives occasionally claim formality and self-discipline as their values, and sometimes they're right. But props again to Brooks for recognizing his values in King, and implicitly acknowledging that those values transcend ideology.

If I have one wish for today, it's that lots and lots of people, particularly John McCain, read this column. Not because I think they should try and learn something from it, but because I have faith that they can.

Gail Collins on McCain's economic proposals

A day after David Brooks praised John McCain's foreign policy speech for being level-headed and NotBush, Gail Collins takes apart McCain's economic policies. Which is much more fun. I love Gail Collins. She always writes part of her column in a calm, soothing tone of voice, as if she was that nice lady who lives next door and always has the neighbors over for tea. And then she slips it in:

[A]t bottom, his economic vision makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. He’s going to keep the Bush tax cuts, continue our $3-trillion-and-counting war in Iraq and decrease corporate taxes. And how is he going to pay for it? By getting rid of pork-barrel earmarks.

How reasonable is this? Not very. Let's go with a simple domestic metaphor.

And I am planning to remodel my house by purchasing a tube of Elmer’s glue.

It's fascinating how a man who is so thoughtful and articulate in one respect, i.e. foreign policy, can be so out to lunch in another.

David Brooks on McCain's speech

David Brooks had a good piece on John McCain's foreign policy speech on Wednesday. Brooks argues that McCain, unlike the Democratic characterization of him, will not be continuing George Bush's foreign policy. Specifically, he cites three speeches has given, the first in 1983, in response to Reagan's decision to send troops to Lebanon. Brooks points out that, true to his reputation as a maverick and a realist, McCain has opposed the use of force when he does believe it can achieve our objectives, opposed his party and President when he thinks they are wrong, and has adjusted to changing realities. All qualities that would be very welcome in a Republican administration. And then Brooks obliquely chastises those of us who are focused on other issues at the present time:

Anybody who thinks McCain is merely continuing the Bush agenda is not paying attention.

I have to admit that I am one of those people who have not been distracted by events in the Democratic race. Feeling slightly chastened, I decided that I should pay attention. So I read McCain's speech.

Brooks is right, there is a great deal of difference between McCain and Bush. McCain almost sounds like a Democrat when he says

"Recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we pay "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed. We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must be willing to be persuaded by them."

That sounds like real humility. And I think there's an excellent chance that he actually believes it.

I am glad that McCain is the Republican nominee, because I agree with him on a lot of this. He obviously will attract some people disillusioned with Bush
But there are a couple of key issues that he does not address, both around Iraq. The first is, was it a mistake to invade in the first place? McCain will, I assume, always answer yes. That is a fundamental point of disagreement between him and Obama. Second, although he talks about staying in Iraq until we achieve victory, i.e. a stable Iraq, he never addresses the cost. He argues that the surge is working, which suggests that he thinks success is just around the corner. But the events of this week are not encouraging. At what point, Senator McCain, is the price too high?

William F. Buckley

So William F. Buckley has entered the church triumphant, where he is presumably arguing with archangels and chatting with cherubim and enjoying very long siestas with seraphim. George Will and David Brooks have both, as have many others, written eulogies. Will's is exactly what you expect, gracious, eloquent, and filled with interesting facts and quotes. But David Brooks' piece pays homage to Buckley's great gift to political discourse, his sense of humor, by remembering his own youthful parody of Buckley - which Buckley himself appreciated so much he hired Brooks. David Brooks starts out his eulogy of William F. Buckley patting himself on the back - something Buckley himself would have heartily approved of.

I only saw Firing Line once, when I was spending the summer in Washington with a lesbian friend. The subject was homosexuality, and Buckley was being attacked by a priest for not being conservative enough on the subject. I was fascinated because I had no idea this kind of dispute was possible - William F. Buckley, not conservative enough? The priest at one point asked Buckley, "What right does a sodomite have?" To which Buckley, with that droll, tilted-head expression, replied, casually withering his guest, "He has a right not to be run over by a tank from you."

The New York Times, in its obituary, noted something I have always thot was deliciously ironic: The National Review, paragon of capitalism, is not profitable and never has been: it depends on donations from readers to stay afloat. The great advocate of ambition and rugged individualism is a long-term charity case.

I will miss Buckley because his extraordinary self-confidence came not from an ironclad and rigid belief in the superiority of his ideas, although that clearly played a part, but from his belief that he could listen well to his opponents, understand their perspective, and then convince them that they were wrong. He understood that if you want your opponents to listen to you, it is immensely helpful if you begin by listening to them. He also seems to have understood that if you really do want to prove your opponents wrong, you have to understand their arguments as well as possible, because if you make a mistake in your opposition, they will dismiss you.

And of course he understood how important it is to have fun in politics. He reminds me - how ironic is this - of Emma Goldman, the early 20th century radical, who said "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." Buckley invited as many people as possible to the dance.