I mentioned in the post below that Paul Krugman and David Brooks made especially odd company on the op ed page yesterday.

Briefly Brooks argues that conservatives debate public philosophy while liberals talk about policy, so conservatives are intellectuals and liberals are technicians.

Krugman argues that few professors are Republicans because no few people who cares about logic , evidence or consistency can stand the Republican party. A striking difference is that Krugman refers to polling data and Brooks hints at anecdotes. Needless to say, I find Brooks very unconvincing and Krugman very convincing (although Ezra Klein made the same point). The odd thing is that they have something in common. Both are contributing to a discussion which recently appeared in blogs.

Now In the past week I haven't had any contact with current US political discussion except reading blogs and talking to my parents and my sister, so I might be missing something, but I almost suspect that NY Times columnists are getting ideas for columns by surfing blogs.



I dumped on Brooks in the post below, but I can't stop. He pretends to believe that the intellectuals grouped around the original National Review are a major intellectual and political force. He must know that the conservative movement which is currently in power and influences the thought of a huge number of people is rooted elsewhere. Oh and he must also know that the energy of conservative think tanks and upper middle brow magazines has something to do with generous donations from a few rich conservatives as well as (presumably) intellectual ferment.