When David Brooks looks reasonable…

Standard-bearer Republicans must look crazy.  Brooks is about as close to the old line WASP/New England conservative as we have; Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe aren’t actually moderate, or we’d have universal health care already.

Anyway, the point of that lead is to call attention to Brooks’ two most recent columns.  Monday, he tied our overconsumption, overeating, interest group capture, and undertaxation into one column.  It’s a bipartisan populism that progressives lack, i.e. it combines Republican moralism with progressive economic concerns.  If Democrats could adopt that message, they could achieve real change.

Then today he relatively forcefully argued for the impotence of right wing pundits.  It’s a message that Democrats in Congress could take to heart; for anyone who reads mainstream papers or does not listen to Beck/Limbaugh/O’Reilly/Hannity, it’s clear that the public option should be part of health care reform.  He’s arguing as a conservative who’s seen his remaining moderates kicked out of the tent after November 4th, but it’s a point any Liberal would argue.

And once Progressives learn to frame the debate as Brooks inadvertently puts forward, they will carry the discourse and be able to raise taxes without losing an election.