David Brooks, as most of you know, takes a libertarian perspective to his politics, and on Friday nites he represents the Republican perspective on PBS' Newshour. You can always count on Brooks to be a straightshooter, not always right in his analyses (my perspective), but always thoughtful and thorough. He's very much the Chicago grad, and my favorite commentator and opinion writer. I lke Douthat, Krugman and occasionally Friedman. But Brooks. . . !! Brooks is right of center, and typically, I'm left of center, but not very far left. I've been known to vote for Republicans, though not recently. But Brooks is a wise Republican, thoughtful, balanced, unwilling to get his shorts in a knot over Fox News idiocies, and able to pull out the fundamentals and assumptions surrounding most any political or cultural issue.
Now. I hope all that input will support my analysis of Brooks' analysis of Rahm Emmanuel. Emanuel, as most of you know is a real character, a Chicago ethnic, par excellence. I've always found him fascinating, hilarious and occasionally delightfully obscene. So the first article I read in the NYTimes today was Brooks' commentary on Emanuel, entitled The Soft Side. As Brooks writes, everyone has an image of Rahm Emanuel: profanity-spewing political street fighter, the guy who sent a dead fish to a political opponent, an abrasive pit bull, etc., etc..
But this Op-Ed is one I hope millions read. It's what a great writer looks like when he writes great stuff. He takes one's full humanity into his perspective. Kudos to Brooks. I hope you read the entire article, so here are the last three sentences to pique your interest:
I interview a lot of politicians. Rahm is unique. Flawed like all of us, he is a full human being, rich and fertile from the inside out.