Glenn Greenwald Slams David Brooks
October 30,2009 
David Brooks has decided to become a real journalist and do some investigating on the war in Afghanistan he has cheer led. And by real journalism, he means calling up lots of people who agree with him. Glenn Greenwald is not impressed:
In a shocking coincidence, the views of these unnamed, handpicked, anonymous "experts" all happen to coincide perfectly with Brooks's own warrior views
and, more generally, with clichéd neoconservative pablum: Obama must
prove that he's just like Churchill and Lincoln — that he possesses
the toughness and determination that tough guy War Presidents
exude: "tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and
grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and
confusion" — which can only happen if he escalates the war in
Afghanistan. If he doesn't do that, it will that prove Obama is weak
and too "intellectually sophisticated" to be a real War President.
Update: Just a thought – wouldn't it show more fortitude for a war time President to do the politically difficult thing and withdraw troops rather than increase them? It's easy to be brave with other people's lives, but far harder to subject yourself to political ridicule for doing the right thing.
David Brooks has decided to become a real journalist and do some investigating on the war in Afghanistan he has cheer led. And by real journalism, he means calling up lots of people who agree with him. Glenn Greenwald is not impressed:
In a shocking coincidence, the views of these unnamed, handpicked, anonymous "experts" all happen to coincide perfectly with Brooks's own warrior views
and, more generally, with clichéd neoconservative pablum: Obama must
prove that he's just like Churchill and Lincoln — that he possesses
the toughness and determination that tough guy War Presidents
exude: "tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and
grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and
confusion" — which can only happen if he escalates the war in
Afghanistan. If he doesn't do that, it will that prove Obama is weak
and too "intellectually sophisticated" to be a real War President.
Update: Just a thought – wouldn't it show more fortitude for a war time President to do the politically difficult thing and withdraw troops rather than increase them? It's easy to be brave with other people's lives, but far harder to subject yourself to political ridicule for doing the right thing.
Yes mate, thats so damn true. Except that for these schmucks the only form of courage is the willingness to send people to die anytime something goes bump in the night. For them, if you’re not willing to spend tons of money and waste human life on someones paranoid fanasies, then you lack courage. As they said “tenacity, the ability to fixate on a simple conviction and grip it, viscerally and unflinchingly, through complexity and confusion” are what define it for them. Which of course means being completely myopic and never changing ones opinion or reassessing a problem based on new evidence. Which is why 80% of the country thinks they’re crazy