David Brooks: Lying in Print

The trouble with conservative columnists, as a NYT editor remarked, is that they tend to lie in print. He should know, since he employs several of them. David Brooks is always a good case in point. From today's column:

Nov. 4, 2008, is a historic day because it marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once.

Economically, it marks the end of the Long Boom, which began in 1983.

This is ludicrous on so many levels that one is amazed by the absurd effrontery. Whatever boom began in 1983, it had ended, or at least severely paused, by 1991. The subsequent boom ended in the year 2000. Since then, we have had seven years of anemic economic growth ending in late 2007, followed by catastrophe in the early fall of 2008. We have now had nearly a year of declining employment.

Most of the rest of his column is almost as preposterously in error. Brooks, of course, is a master of the "make shit up" school of conservative sociology. He should stick to that. Trying to comment on the real world is far beyond his comprehension level.

It really is despicable what one apparently needs to do to keep one's parking space at the AEP.

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