Brooks on the ignorant masses

Warning: David Brooks's latest exercise in elitist condescension might make you want to tear your hair out.

How is it that this self-appointed spokesman for the "educated class" equates having an education with holding liberal views? I, under-educated rabble that I am, realized decades ago that, contrary to what I had absorbed from the Boston Globe, the network news, and my PhD-holding liberal feminist professors, there was such a thing as a smart (and well-educated) conservative.

Brooks's piece is just so . . . hang on while I consult my thesaurus . . . . that's it -- stupid. What is this educated class he speaks of? Maybe we should call it the indoctrinated class:

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

They don't sound that smart to me. These are the default views proffered every day by the old school liberal media.

Are we supposed to accept as a given that people who protest Obama's socialist agenda do so out of ignorance? Brooks shares Obama's prejudices against the bitterly-clinging masses of flyover country.

This is nothing but spin:

The tea party movement is a large, fractious confederation of Americans who are defined by what they are against. They are against the concentrated power of the educated class. They believe big government, big business, big media and the affluent professionals are merging to form self-serving oligarchy — with bloated government, unsustainable deficits, high taxes and intrusive regulation.

You'd think a smart guy like Brooks might see that all those negatives could be very easily rephrased in a positive way: for liberty and smaller government, for traditional values, for the sanctity of life, for free speech and an honest, watchdog media, etc.

More spin:

The tea party movement is mostly famous for its flamboyant fringe.

If that's so it's precisely because the liberal media (and the likes of Pelosi and Reid) have consistently stressed the fringiest elements in the crowds. (And when they couldn't find anything objectionable they could always creatively manufacture something.)

It never occurred to me that tea party people might be viewed as outsiders:

Moreover, the tea party movement has passion. Think back on the recent decades of American history — the way the hippies defined the 1960s; the feminists, the 1970s; the Christian conservatives, the 1980s. American history is often driven by passionate outsiders who force themselves into the center of American life.

Maybe Mr. Brooks needs to get out and mix more. I could introduce him to some smart conservatives who survived years of graduate school without losing their common sense.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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