David Brooks
Born	August 11, 1961 (1961-08-11) (age 46) Toronto, Canada
Occupation	columnist, pundit
Website New York Times columns

David Brooks (b. August 11, 1961) is a Canadian-American political and cultural commentator. Brooks served as a reporter for the Washington Times, a reporter and later op-ed editor for The New York Times, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard from its inception, a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic Monthly, and a commentator on NPR and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. is the 223rd day of the year (224th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A columnist is a journalist who produces a specific form of writing for publication called a column. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and the Internet. ... The term Pundit has multiple meanings: A pundit or pandit, in the culture of India, is a master of traditional religious poetry and/or traditional music. ... is the 223rd day of the year (224th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Washington Times is a daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C.. It was founded in 1982 as a conservative alternative to the Washington Post by members of the controversial Unification Church. ... The New York Times is a daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed internationally. ... The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative [1] magazine published 48 times per year. ... The Newsweek logo Newsweek is a weekly news magazine published in New York City and distributed throughout the United States and internationally. ... The Atlantic redirects here; for the ocean, see Atlantic Ocean. ... NPR logo For other meanings of NPR see NPR (disambiguation) National Public Radio (NPR) is a private, not-for-profit corporation that sells programming to member radio stations; together they are a loosely organized public radio network in the United States. ... The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is an evening television news program broadcast weeknights on PBS in the United States. ...

Brooks was born into a Jewish family in Toronto and grew up in New York City in Stuyvesant Town. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1983 with a degree in history. The word Jew ( Hebrew: יהודי) is used in a wide number of ways, but generally refers to a follower of the Jewish faith, a child of a Jewish mother, or someone of Jewish descent with a connection to Jewish culture or ethnicity and often a combination of these attributes. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... View of central Manhattan from Stuyvesant Town. ... For other uses, see University of Chicago (disambiguation). ... For the Jimi Hendrix song, see 1983. ... For other uses, see History (disambiguation). ...

He wrote a book of cultural commentary titled Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There. Brooks also writes articles and makes television appearances as a commentator on various trends in pop culture, such as internet dating. His newest book is entitled On Paradise Drive : How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. Bobos in Paradise is a book by David Brooks, first published in 2000. ... Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in a modern society. ... A Net dating service is an example of a dating system. ...

Before the Iraq War, Brooks argued forcefully on moral grounds for American military intervention, echoing the belief of neoconservative commentators and political figures that American and British forces would be welcomed as liberators. However, some of his opinion pieces in the spring of 2004 suggested that he had tempered somewhat his earlier optimism about the war. This article is about the 2003 invasion of Iraq. ... Neoconservatism describes several distinct political ideologies which are considered new forms of conservatism. ...

David Brooks was a visiting professor of public policy at Duke University's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, and he taught an undergraduate seminar there in the fall of 2006. [1] Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. ... The Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University is named after former Duke president and Governor of North Carolina Terry Sanford, who established the universitys Institute for Public Policy Studies in 1971. ...

Brooks in the political spectrum

Brooks, now a conservative, describes himself as being originally a liberal. In 1983, for example, he wrote a parody of conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. : American liberalism—that is, liberalism in the United States of America—is a broad political and philosophical mindset, favoring individual liberty, and opposing restrictions on liberty, whether they come from established religion, from government regulation, from the existing class structure, or from multi-national corporations. ... This article is about the conservative journalist and commentator. ...

In the afternoons he is in the habit of going into crowded rooms and making everybody else feel inferior. The evenings are reserved for extended bouts of name-dropping. (University of Chicago Maroon, April 5, 1983.)

Buckley admired the parody and offered Brooks a job with National Review. A turning point in Brooks's thinking came later that year in a televised debate with Milton Friedman, which, as Brooks describes it, "was essentially me making a point, and he making a two-sentence rebuttal which totally devastated my point."[2] National Review (NR) is a biweekly magazine of political opinion, founded by author William F. Buckley, Jr. ... Milton Friedman (July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual. ...

On August 10, 2006, Brooks wrote a column for the New York Times titled "Party No. 3". The column proposed the idea of the McCain-Lieberman Party, or the fictional representation of the moderate majority in America.

Social views

Brooks opposes what he sees as self-destructive behavior like teenage sex and divorce; however, he is not a culture warrior in the traditional sense. His view is that "sex is more explicit everywhere barring real life. As the entertainment media have become more sex-saturated, American teenagers have become more sexually abstemious" by "waiting longer to have sex...[and] having fewer partners." He sees the culture war as nearly over, because "today's young people...seem happy with the frankness of the left and the wholesomeness of the right." As a result, he is optimistic about the United States' social stability, which he considers to be "in the middle of an amazing moment of improvement and repair." (New York Times, April 17, 2005, 4-14.) Divorce or dissolution of marriage is the ending of a marriage before the death of either spouse. ... The culture war (or culture wars) in American usage is a metaphor used to claim that political conflict is based on sets of conflicting values. ...

Brooks also broke with many in the conservative movement when, in late 2003, he came out in favor of same-sex marriage in his New York Times column. He equated the idea with traditional conservative values: "We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.... It's going to be up to conservatives to make the important, moral case for marriage, including gay marriage." (New York Times, November 22, 2003, A-15.) Recognized in some regions Foreign marriages recognized Civil unions and registered partnerships Recognized in some regions Unregistered co-habitation Recognition debated United States (IA, IL, MD, NM, NY, RI) Recognition granted, same-sex marriage debated United States (CT, DC, HI, ME, NH, NJ, OR, VT, WA) See also This box...

Controversies

Philadelphia Magazine controversy

In April 2004, Sasha Issenberg of Philadelphia magazine set out to retrace the journey through Franklin County, Pennsylvania, that Brooks described in the article "One Nation, Slightly Divisible" published in 2001 in the Atlantic Monthly. [3] [4] Issenberg uncovered several inaccuracies and distortions in Brooks's article. For example, Brooks wrote "On my journeys to Franklin County, I set a goal: I was going to spend $20 on a restaurant meal...I'd scan the menu and realize that I'd been beaten once again. I went through great vats of chipped beef and 'seafood delight' trying to drop $20. I waded through enough surf-and-turfs and enough creamed corn to last a lifetime. I could not do it." Issenberg discovered that, to the contrary, "I lunched at the Chambersburg Red Lobster and quickly realized that he could not have waded through much surf-and-turf at all. The `Steak and Lobster' combination with grilled center-cut New York strip is the most expensive thing on the menu. It costs $28.75." Sasha Issenberg is an American journalist who wrote an article, published in Philadelphia Magazine in 2004, that pointed out factual problems in the work of New York Times columnist and author David Brooks. ... Philadelphia (usually called Philadelphia magazine and often incorrectly written as Philadelphia Magazine or refered to the nickname Phillymag) is a regional monthly magazine published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Metrocorp. ... Franklin County is a county located in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. ... This article is about the year. ... The Atlantic Monthly (also known as The Atlantic) is an American literary/cultural magazine that was founded in November 1857. ... Franklin County is a county located in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. ... Red Lobster is a U.S. chain of seafood restaurants. ...

When confronted with these inaccuracies, Brooks accused Issenberg of being "too pedantic" and of "taking all of this too literally".

Partial bibliography

• On Paradise Drive : How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense (2004) ISBN 0-7432-2738-7
• Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (2000) ISBN 0-684-85377-9

Bobos in Paradise is a book by David Brooks, first published in 2000. ...

See also

• Pundit

This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

References

External links

• "Meet David Brooks", New York Times biographical video interview
• New York Times columns
• Brooks participates in extended political discussion with Andrew Rosenthal, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich, New York Times video, July 17, 2006
• David Brooks: The end of integration?, International Herald Tribune , July 6, 2007
• David Brooks: Why liberals are turning on their favorite conservative
• Everybody's a Critic
• Weekly Standard's biography
• Blog exploring and expanding on the works of David Brooks
• David Brooks interviewed by Brian Lamb on Booknotes
• 2004 Philadelphia Magazine article about accuracy of David Brooks's observations
• David Brooks in conversation with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Video
• David Brooks at the Internet Movie Database
• David Brooks and the deceitful tactics of the Beltway pundit by Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com
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