David Brooks: "I am pro Obama. I am totally pro Obama on this."

[kpete]

David Brooks got it perfectly right.

When Chuck Todd asked if politicians can have the debate, David Brooks got it perfectly right.

I am pro Obama. I am totally pro Obama on this. I think he said the right thing. It was a gospel of humility. What sorts of people need a little gospel of humility? People in Washington, pundits, religious believers, -- I happen to be all three of those things -- and so we are told to walk humbly in the path, that the Lord's paths are mysterious. And so he was saying we are prone to zealotry. As Jon said we are fallen. So to underline that, that's useful in Washington today. That's useful always.

When Chuck Todd asked if it was necessary for a President to leave office before he could speak that candidly, David Brooks response was again on point.

No I think he was right. He gave the race speech. It was a beautiful speech. He has given a whole series of great speeches, Trayvon Martin. I think this was utterly fine. This is exactly the moment you want to say this. We are most in moral danger to ourselves when we are caught up in a righteous fervor against an evil foe. Which is what we have. So while we exercise hard power, we have to take morally hazardous action, we are prone to get caught up in our own self-righteousness. This is exactly the moment you want this.

The President's speech was about humility. It was about ALL humans being fallible. As such we should all get of the high horses and work together to bring us all together for a better nation, for a better world.




http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/08/1363143/-Wow-David-Brooks-passionately-defends-President-Obama-s-National-Prayer-Breakfast-statements

[Cooley Hurd]

1. The flying pigs - nice touch!

[onecaliberal]

2. Where is chicken little?

[kpete]

3. you asked?

[onecaliberal]

6. Perfect!

[Fred Sanders]

4. Anyone watching the entire speech would say the same.....Chucky did not have time for 17 minutes?

Andrea Mitchell did not, apparently, also.

Watching her squirm in discomfort because she was SO in the wrong, having not watched the entire speech, and was caught fault brained, was satisfying.



President Obama Speaks at National Prayer Breakfast

February 04, 2010 | 16:56 | Public Domain

The President speaks about the power of prayer to foster civility and bridge divisions in remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC.

Full transcript and HD video of speech:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/president-obama-speaks-national-prayer-breakfast#transcript

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/president-obama-speaks-national-prayer-breakfast

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Sometimes Brooks says things that make you think

that he's essentially a well-meaning person who has been thoroughly duped into a right-wing worldview that he is now slowly emerging from, as if from the proverbial Cloud of Unknowing.

At other times I revert to the conviction that he's just another corporate shill with a shallow understanding of the world that he mistakes for profundity.

[Cirque du So-What]

8. He engages in dialogue with EJ Dionne (WP, Brookings Institution) every Friday on NPR

I listen on the way home from work, and I get the impression that Brooks was never in the fire-breathing conservative corner.

[elleng]

20. Right, he wasn't.

He often gets things wrong, but occasionally is VERY correct, as here, and also fairly often is plain old correct and/or in agreement with Mark Shields. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/shields-and-brooks/

[Warpy]

22. I read what he has to day once in a blue moon

I usually have to stop 3/4 of the way down any of his articles when he starts to ditto out of context, but he's not the average right wing parrot. He thinks about what he's saying. He's just started out with the wrong data, most of the time, manufactured data.

[monmouth4]

7. Did Chuckie need a fainting couch or did he just let it go?.....n/t

[Cali_Democrat]

15. No, but Andrea Mitchell did. She was very angry with Obama...

...which means Obama said the right thing.

[Journeyman]

9. What would be the media reaction today to Mr Lincoln's telling the nation that it had sinned. . .

and that the Civil War was God's punishment -- to both North and South -- for the offense in which they shared? An offense so vile it required the destruction of all the wealth earned through it, and that every drop of blood drawn with the lash be paid for by another drawn with the sword?

What would their entreaties be against such judgement?

[KingCharlemagne]

16. That is a damned good question (one I'm scared to contemplate). Your allusion to

Lincoln's Second Inaugural prompted me to find the full passage and copy it here:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html

"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." Damn, but Lincoln had a way of cutting to the chase and getting to the nub of things quickly, didn't he?

[TwilightGardener]

10. His prayer speech was dumb. We don't need to be discussing Crusades,

or comparing religions, he's not my religious leader, and for God's sake, just stop with the "what is and isn't Islam" bullshit.

[Fred Sanders]

11. Have you watched the entire speech video or read the transcript, because discussing specifics helps?

See post #4 please.

[kpete]

12. His point

was humility



not what is and isn't this or that religion






Humility towards Tolerance
works for me
no religion necessary
just Humanity

peace,
kp

[TwilightGardener]

13. I am opposed to mixing religion and politics.

Period. I don't care what his message is, I don't want him opining on religious matters, the same as I don't want Huckafuck and Santorum anywhere near the Presidency. Leave the whole goddamn mess alone, unless you're my priest or preacher or rabbi.

[kpete]

14. Humility

is not

religious


.

[TwilightGardener]

17. He's not the guy to give me guidance in humility.

No one who is President, or runs for President, can plausibly do that. They are narcissists by nature.

[kpete]

18. never mind then

peace,
kp

[BrotherIvan]

19. Agree!

Get the religion out of politicis PERIOD.

[George II]

23. One will never, EVER be able separate religion and politics.

[bluestateguy]

21. And that's fine

But David Brooks is not considred by conservatives to be one of their own.

[Hekate]

24. Well done, David Brooks. He got it in one. Politicians want self-congratulation at the Prayer B'fast

They want a smarmy affirmation of their behavior, with no insight or reflection required of them.

Obama must have thought to himself, "Well if they want a sermon, I'll give them one, but it won't be comfortable." And it was not. Jesus didn't make his hearers feel comfortable, either.

Btw did I understand correctly that the Dalai Lama was in attendance? That is certainly a first, if so, and pleases me.