THE LOW POST: The Mansion Family

In the first installment of his weekly Web-only column, Matt Taibbi writes that yuppie paranoia (and David Brooks) guarantees the Democrats are still -- and forever -- doomed.

MATT TAIBBI

"The conservative mansion has many rooms. In one chamber there are the resurgent Burkeans . . . In another chamber are the staunch Churchillians . . . But I wonder if amid all the din there might be a room, even just a utility closet, for those of us in yet another rightward sect, the neocon incrementalists." -- David Brooks, "Onward Cautious Soldiers," The New York Times, July 23, 2006

So David Brooks wants to go into the closet with his fellow neocon incrementalists. And I thought The New York Times was a family newspaper!

There are many people out there who are baffled by the career of David Brooks, but I am not one of them. Any man willing to admit in print that he can get a boner surveying the "awesome resumes" of marrying Ivy Leaguers on the New York Times wedding page ("you can almost feel the force of mingling SAT scores," he coos in his book Bobos In Paradise) is always going to occupy an important spot in the American media landscape; the ruling class always needs its house bumlickers. And Brooks does the job well, although at times I think he's so craven that he does his masters a disservice. I mean, seriously -- a mansion of conservatism? Why not go all the way: The yacht of Republicanism has a great many berths . . .