David Brooks: Find the "Real Action"... in Sioux Falls

NYT columnist David Brooks puts on a happy face with that snappy purple tie and says the next 40 years will be great for America (total destruction of our constitutional republic notwithstanding). In a "luscious orgy of optimism" (spring has that effect on me, too), Brooks declares America is in for healthy immigration and population growth, development of more vibrant town centers, and a leading role in global economic revival.

Brooks also notes that Sioux Falls will be where it's at!

Over the next 40 years, [geographer Joel] Kotkin argues, urban downtowns will continue their modest (and perpetually overhyped) revival, but the real action will be out in the compact, self-sufficient suburban villages. Many of these places will be in the sunbelt — the drive to move there remains strong — but Kotkin also points to surging low-cost hubs on the Plains, like Fargo, Dubuque, Iowa City, Sioux Falls, and Boise [David Brooks, "Relax, We'll Be Fine," New York Times, 2010.04.05].

O.K., Boise isn't exactly the Plains. But quit your grousing: Sioux Falls made the New York Times! Whoo-hoo!

Brooks: Security Fails, Terrorists Succeed -- Grow Up, America

David Brooks is my kind of conservative. If you haven't read his critique of airport security and our expectation that we can legislate and technologize our way to perfect security, you should. He calls much of the criticism of the system that let the pants bomber board that plane in Amsterdam "contemptuous and hysterical":

Various experts have gathered bits of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s biography. Since they can string the facts together to accurately predict the past, they thunder, the intelligence services should have been able to connect the dots to predict the future.

Dick Cheney argues that the error was caused by some ideological choice. Arlen Specter screams for more technology — full-body examining devices. “We thought that had been remedied,” said Senator Kit Bond, as if omniscience could be accomplished with legislation.

...For better or worse, over the past 50 years we have concentrated authority in centralized agencies and reduced the role of decentralized citizen action. We’ve done this in many spheres of life. Maybe that’s wise, maybe it’s not. But we shouldn’t imagine that these centralized institutions are going to work perfectly or even well most of the time. It would be nice if we reacted to their inevitable failures not with rabid denunciation and cynicism, but with a little resiliency, an awareness that human systems fail and bad things will happen and we don’t have to lose our heads every time they do [David Brooks, "The God That Fails," New York Times, 2009.12.31].

Brooks doesn't try to score political points: he offers equal criticism here for Republicans and Democrats. Everyone from Bush to Obama has bought into the notion that big government and big technology can solve all of our problems, and that if they produce anything less than perfect results, heads must roll.

Madison had 71 crimes over a four-month period, but we don't call for Chief Pulford's resignation or a complete overhaul of our "failing" police department. It's too bad we can't be similarly level-headed on airport security. A little British stiff upper lip might do more good than further investments in the diminishing returns of "Security Theater."

Brooks: Jindal out of Touch

Another Jindal howler: attempting to portray "volcano monitoring" as pork (note Jindal's use of the word larded). I don't need to live next to a volcano to recognize spending $140M on monitoring volcanoes is a really good idea. You'd think a guy who lives in a state built on flood plains in Hurricane Alley would grasp the importance of watching for natural disasters.

Governor Jindal is an icon of a party out of touch. But don't take my word for it; see what conservative commentator David Brooks says about Jindal's "Happy Mardi Gras" chat:

"You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician," said New York Times columnist David Brooks, appearing on PBS, "and I oppose the stimulus because I thought it was poorly drafted. But to come up at this moment in history with a stale "government is the problem," "we can't trust the federal government" -- it's just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea ... that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this ... it's just a form of nihilism. It's just not where the country is, it's not where the future of the country is. There's an intra-Republican debate" [Sam Stein, "Bobby Jindal Response Panned By Pundits, Republicans And Democrats Alike", Huffinton Post, 2009.02.25].

Well, Governor Jindal had his shot. Speeches are done—now back to work!