Larry Beinhart: Deconstructing David Brooks

The Holy Capitalists" is the headline of a David Brooks column from December 15, 2005.

"Pointing to faith to explain success," is the subhead.

In it, David Brooks took on the history of Western Civilization and turned it inside out.

The good thing is that history sits a great deal more still than current events do.

We can grab hold of the bits and pieces of the story and see that neo-con punditry is more than a matter of opinions. It's a technique of using a handful of false facts that the reader or listener is unlikely to have a chance to look up while the story is being read or heard. It frequently conflates separate ideas that don't exactly belong together. Then it spins a theory that fits the false facts and the confusion of the mismatched concepts. They don't fit reality, but never mind, there's no one around to point out what reality is.