The Times' designated idiot

David Brooks performs his role...

It was a winter's night in Iowa, round about midnight. John Kerry should have been wrapping up a town meeting, but he'd decided to go into his "I'll answer every question'' mode. Most everybody desperately wanted to go home, and insects and other small life forms were perishing from boredom. Every time he'd launch into another Castroite soliloquy - on the history of the Middle East or the pay structure of the civil service - the audience would groan. I sat there listening to this drone, thinking, "If this man becomes president, I have to stop being a pundit because I know nothing about politics."

Yes, that's right, David, you should stop being a pundit. Now. Go. Away.

Of course, "everyone wanted to go home." Except all those people who still had questions for Kerry.

And I remember those winter's nights in the Midwest. Full of insects. Buzzing around. Tropical, in fact. Much like Cuba, apparently.

Has Brooks even been to Iowa?

Not to be facile, but David Brooks seems to be leading the charge in a new conservative argument that Kerry's success represents no more or less than a desire by some of the electorate to take a breather from the exciting, bold, man-of-action that is George W. Bush.

I didn't realize how much this campaign would feel like George Bush's run for a third term. So much stuff has happened over the past four years, he's already built up two terms' worth of animosity among his foes and two terms' worth of exhaustion in his friends.

It's not that voters will ever love Kerry, but it could be that if you presented them with some variety of an interesting candidate, they would recoil and like that candidate even less.

Oh, yeah. That's why, after leading the nation through the Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, and World War II, FDR only served one term. Americans can only take such vitality in small doses.

What Brooksie doesn't say is, why "exhaustion in his friends?" Why, would it be exhaustion with the almost stunning failure of this administration? Would it be exhaustion with the administration's unique ability to leave no principle -- even conservative ones -- untrampled upon? Just a thought.