Originally a comment by Steven on The mix of condescension and entitlement is stunning.

Brooks has nothing to say.

He writes two paragraphs of sharp criticism of Clinton (one at the beginning; one near the end). But rather than support his criticism with evidence–you know, things she’s said, things she’s done–he fills out the rest of the column with a paean to grace.

Reading this stuff is painful: both tedious and cringe-inducing. I skimmed it the first time through; later I circled back and read the whole thing, mainly out of a sense of duty. (I read Brooks…so you don’t have to.)

What is striking on a careful read is that the column is virtually content-free. It is grounded … Read the rest

Via Facebook, a takedown of David Brooks’s patronizing advice to Clinton, by someone who wants to remain anonymous.

Brooks:

If you interpret your life as a battlefield, then you will want to maintain control at all times. You will hoard access. You will refuse to have press conferences. You will close yourself off to those who can help.

If you treat the world as a friendly and hopeful place, as a web of relationships, you’ll look for the good news in people and not the bad. You’ll be willing to relinquish control, and in surrender you’ll actually gain more strength as people trust in your candor and come alongside.

Response by anonymous genius:

Her political life IS a battlefield,

Dayna Evans responded to David Brooks’s terrible, talentless, lazy “opinion piece” the day it appeared (last Friday).

Some writers are bad at writing, while others are good. But being good at writing is often not enough: One must also be gracious when writing about female presidential candidates. The best writers in the world are able to turn good writing into great by calling upon graciousness and intelligence in the face of an anti-intellectual world.

David Brooks — who today published “The Art of Gracious Leadership,” a musing on why Hillary Clinton is not, unlike “Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela and Dorothy Day,” a gracious leader — is not one of those writers.

Good writers, just like the subject of David