Balkinization: "Systemic change"

"Systemic change"

Sandy Levinson

David Brooks, in his column in today's New York Times, writes, "The McCain campaign is the champion of systemic change — after two decades of bickering and self-dealing, its [sic] time to shake up the whole system in order to get things done." Brooks, who went to Harvard, [UPDATE: he actually went to Chicago, so Harvard has nothing to apologize for] is presumably not stupid, but this one sentence sums up, for me, the tragi-comic vapidity of both politicians and pundits who view themselves as champions of "systemic change." I won't bother going through my whole song and dance about all of the ways that our defective Constitution contributes to the "decades of bickering and self-dealing" (and much else besides). But one might think that someone who believes that "it's time to shake up the whole system" might actually talk about what constitutes our political system. There are, of course, good "political" explanations, in the crassest sense, for why Obama, who is thought by many, including Mark Penn, to be basically unAmerican, wouldn't dare suggest that we have less than a perfect Constitution. And one wonders if McCain has ever had a serious conversation about "the whole system," as against moralistic accounts of other peoples' corruption and depravity (including Sarah Palin's altogether rational and politically defensible hiring of a lobbyist to help shovel federal earmarks to her little Alaska town?). But one might expect more from David Brooks and other ostensibly well-educated and sophisticated pundits, on both the right and left, who accept the abstract proposition that our political system is "broken" and then reduce this to the need for more "bi-partisanship" or better "leadership." Arghh....

Posted 11:41 AM by Sandy Levinson [link]

Comments:

Brooks, who went to Harvard, is presumably not stupid

Per wiki, Brooks went to Chicago. How much that changes your assumption, I do not know.

# posted by

Unknown : 11:57 AM

Brooks's columns provide us with more evidence than his university. We should judge his analytical ability on the basis of them, not his alma mater.

# posted by

Mark Field : 12:17 PM

Per wiki, Brooks went to Chicago. How much that changes your assumption, I do not know.

1. That was certainly his undergraduate degree. Perhaps he got a graduate degree at Harvard?

2. [Enter zinger about Chicago being a better school than Harvard here]

3. Mark's right, of course. My columns are terrible to the point of non-existence, and reflect poorly on my alma mater.

# posted by

PMS_CC : 12:28 PM

Mark Field, that is not how lawyers evaluate people!

# posted by

sean : 12:34 PM

... but this one sentence sums up, for me, the tragi-comic vapidity of both politicians and pundits who view themselves as champions of "systemic change."

The only change McSame is for is McSame changing every part of his own party line to conform to that of the GOP's hard-core base.

Who knows, maybe once he gets elected on the back of the GOP RW, he'll change back and do some of the things he's done in the past to draw the ire of the GOP ... maybe he'll be like the "compassionate conservative" we elected in 2000.... Oh, waiddaminnit.... "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, ... uhhhh, ohhhh, unnnh ... wont' get fooled again".

Not to mention his "mavrick" (to use the spelling on one placard at the GOP convention) status is greatly exaggerated....

Cheers,

Cheers,

# posted by

Arne Langsetmo : 12:55 PM

Running against Washington is a time honored American campaign strategy, but neither side is offering anything close to real systemic change.

Not only is no one considering the kind of constitutional revision for which Sandy is calling, both McCain and Obama are still operating well within the confines of the Reagan realignment that has been in effect for nearly a generation now. McCain is campaigning as Reagan's heir and picked the real thing in Palin to make his own claim to that mantle pass the giggle test. Obama is tacking right as quickly as possible, backing off from his tax increases and now calling for paying and firing teachers based on merit.

The more things "change," the more they stay the same.

# posted by

Bart DePalma : 12:58 PM

Mark Field, that is not how lawyers evaluate people!

That's right -- we judge people on the basis of their LSAT scores. I'll bet Brooks doesn't even have an LSAT score. And we all know what a score of zero on the LSAT means.

# posted by

Mark Field : 1:27 PM

In fairness to Brooks, it strikes me that he's saying that McCain claims to champion systemic change, not that he necessarily would systemically change anything or that he even has any concrete ideas as to what such systemic change would consist of.

# posted by

Asher : 3:47 PM

I certainly stand corrected on Brooks's alma mater. As it happens, I do believe that Chicago is (usually) "better" than Harvard in teaching undergraduates to engage in truly critical and outside the box thinking, so it is even more disappointing to discover that Brooks cannot claim any educational deficiencies as the reason for his vapidity.

# posted by

Sandy Levinson : 4:03 PM

Today's column is another example of how David Brooks applies his intellect to creating new concepts for comparison that almost always favor the Republican candidate or party. He provides no factual or logical necessity to his weirdness theory. Nevertheless, Brooks faults Barack Obama for his effective response, in his acceptance speech, to the many calls for specifics about the change he will make. Brooks does this by citing the speech as Exhibit A of Obama's awful retreat from weirdness. This is such an obvious attempt to distract attention from the utterly silly new McCain campaign theme of change and reform, by trying to damage Obama's image as the real agent of change.

# posted by

Refractor : 4:36 PM