Update: David Brooks is getting hammered for his outright bigotry re Egypt and Islam today.
Robert Wright @robertwrighter 1h
David Brooks says Islamists “lack the mental equipment to govern.” Too bad they can’t be as smart as neocons and advocate disastrous wars. Retweeted 112 times
Stephen Walt @StephenWalt 1h
David Brooks lets veil slip on his bigotry, and David Sirota lets him have it. http://www.salon.com/2013/07/05/david_brooks_bigoted_rant/ …
Original post: A few days ago the New York Times’s public editor broke her own policy of granting columnists leeway and woodshedded David Brooks for his use of the term “mutts” to describe the offspring of mixed marriages–
a column by David Brooks, titled “A Nation of Mutts,” has offended so many people that I thought it would be worthwhile to ask Mr. Brooks to respond.
The treatment has evidently rankled Brooks, who has now hurled his body into racial/ethnic waters once again in a pique-filled column that says Egyptians are too stupid to have democracy. Egypt, he concludes, “seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients” for a “democratic transition.”
Several friends have sent me the neoconservative’s piece, which defends Morsi’s ouster by repeatedly smearing the mental powers of Islamists: they lack the “intellectual DNA,” and “mental equipment” necessary to run a modern country.
In fairness, many folks on our site slam the ratiocinative powers of Zionists; but notice how Brooks’s smears blur into his concluding pox on Egyptians’ minds altogether.
Brooks seems to be itching for a showdown with the forces of political correctness. Can we anticipate a blaze of glory? As you read excerpts below, remember that Brooks once stated, “As an American Jew, I was taught to go all gooey-eyed at the thought of Israel.” And he has visited the country a dozen times. Double standard?
“I think one of his main goals here is to connect Iran in with ‘radical Islam,'” Scott McConnell writes. “Iran unfortunately for Brooks has done all too well running a modern government.”
Brooks excerpts:
It has become clear — in Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Gaza and elsewhere — that radical Islamists are incapable of running a modern government. Many have absolutist, apocalyptic mind-sets. They have a strange fascination with a culture of death….
…Islamists might be determined enough to run effective opposition movements and committed enough to provide street-level social services. But they lack the mental equipment to govern. Once in office, they are always going to centralize power and undermine the democracy that elevated them….
It’s no use lamenting Morsi’s bungling because incompetence is built into the intellectual DNA of radical Islam. We’ve seen that in Algeria, Iran, Palestine and Egypt: real-world, practical ineptitude that leads to the implosion of the governing apparatus…
It’s not that Egypt doesn’t have a recipe for a democratic transition. It seems to lack even the basic mental ingredients.
Racist nonsense.
Malaysia, Bahrain, Iran, Qatar, Saudiarabia, Turkey are all proof that muslim led societies work. All have relativy high GDP.
Imagine if a muslim writer said something alike about jews in Nytimes..
HOWEVER,..
Mursi was elected and hes unseated so in a way alot of Egyptians it seems arent ready for democracy.
The last sentence is blatant bigotry. That the NY Times allows it is a disgrace.
Were I Egyptian I’d pack a sandal and pay for a ticket to whichever rock he lives under in order to pay my respects.
This is astonishing. He is clearly saying that Muslims are genetically incapable of democracy.
I wonder what kinds of responses the NYT will print.
Islamists never had the chance to run the government in Algeria. Simple fact.
And even those who don’t like the authoritarianism of Turkey’s current Islamist government acknowledge that it has shown itself to be far more competent than its immediate non-Islamist predecessors.
If Mr. Brooks was non-Jewish he would be writing among the same people who view Dr. Jason Richwine as a hero.
But neoconservative(which is really just Zionism by a longer name, but with American appeal to ensure military might) racism is acceptable to the established media.
The New York Times could hire a different token Republican, perhaps one who comes from the same tradition as the libertarians? You know, anti-intervention, pro-freedom(like no NSA-fetishism, no racist “war on drugs” and so on) Republican.
They exist but they had been chased out by the neocons, in part because their views on I/P didn’t suit those in power and their views on intervention didn’t suit anyone.
The post-Edward Snowden saga should reveal the level of sycopanthy and militarism even most “liberal” journalists are willing to accept.
Would the NYT be able to fire Brooks and hire someone who isn’t molded in that kind of dirty mud? Just look at the American Conservative publication, for instance.
But that is naive. They won’t. Instead Brooks get to continue his racism unabated.
The targets are soft and fit the prejudices of the media class.