David Brooks, revolutionary

James Surowiecki finds David Brooks op-ed on "fundamental reform of health care" very strange.

Brooks’s piece is written as if the real hurdle to change is that the Obama Administration doesn’t realize what’s wrong with the health-care system, so that if Obama just read the right texts, he would be willing to push for fundamental reform. But the Administration knows more than enough about the problems with health care. It’s just trying to figure out how to come up with a politically possible solution.

Brooks is yet another member of the pundit class who can "advise" the president to be bold, then criticize him later for pushing for too much change. Back in March, he wrote,

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget “contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal’s dream of a new New Deal.”

That came on the heels of the Obama administration ramming through a stimulus package and bank bailouts that, from all appearances, kept us from careening into Great Depression II. So now, making compromises to try to forge together a bill that might induce a few "Blue Dogs" from "Red States" and one, maybe two northeastern Republicans who aren't in thrall to the scorched earth policies of both the leadership and rank and file of the Republican Party, isn't enough change for Brooksie.