David Brooks Makes the Case

You’ll want to be sitting down for this one. David Brooks makes the case against John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as vice president.

It’s less surprising that Mr. Brooks seems oblivious to what he’s really telling us. In his tortuous explanation of his conclusion, he also makes a case against McCain as president.

To summarize: McCain “has instincts” and he makes decisions based on his personal opinions (which Brooks calls “moral philosophy”).

But most issues are not confrontations between virtue and vice. Most problems — the ones Barack Obama is sure to focus on like health care reform and economic anxiety — are the product of complex conditions. They require trade-offs and policy expertise. They are not solvable through the mere assertion of sterling character.

[…]

If McCain is elected, he will face conditions tailor-made to foster disorder….

On top of these conditions, he will have his own freewheeling qualities: a restless, thrill-seeking personality, a tendency to personalize issues, a tendency to lead life as a string of virtuous crusades.

He really needs someone to impose a policy structure on his moral intuitions.

What Brooks is saying is that we really need someone who makes decisions based on facts and a rational governing philosophy, not on “instincts” and “moral intuition”. By telling us that Sarah Palin doesn’t have the qualities that would compensate for McCain’s weaknesses, he tells us that John McCain doesn’t have the qualities we need in a president.