Obama and Brooks: Best Buds

The odd friendship between a conservative columnist and liberal president

By Nick McMaster, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 31, 2009 5:41 PM CDT

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Obama and Brooks: Best Buds — WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 19: David Brooks, a Columnist at the New York Times, speaks during a taping of 'Meet the Press' at NBC October 19, 2008 in Washington, DC. Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell (ret.), David Brooks, a Columnist at the New York Times, Jon Meacham, Editor of Newsweek magazine,... (Getty Images)

Nominal conservative David Brooks is one of President Obama’s unlikeliest allies, writes Gabriel Sherman for the New Republic. The New York Times columnist was on board early, publishing an op-ed titled “Run, Barack, Run” in 2006. Lately, Brooks has written more favorably of Obama than Paul Krugman has. Sherman explores the “bromance” between the prominent pundit and “the most liberal president of his lifetime.”

The closeness between the two stems from Brooks’ particular strain of conservatism, which embraces a deep distrust of ideology and “party line” thinking—qualities he sees in Obama. For the president, Brooks is a powerful ally because he validates the “myth” that the current administration is “post-partisan,”—even though Brooks' biggest audience is not conservatives, but the liberal baby boomers who are some of Obama’s strongest backers.
(More Barack Obama stories.)

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