How is the Dean camp responding to the Brooks hit piece?

Does anyone have any info on how the Dean campaign is responding, or planning to respond, to the David Brooks NYT column that just ran?

If their plan is to ignore it, that really sets off alarm bells for me, because Al Gore tried the same thing, and look where it got him.

What would be a good, effective strategy to use here?

•  Re: How is the Dean camp responding

  Do they have to respond every time a neocon whore attacks them? Is being on defense the best use of their time? IMO, that's how you lose -- responding legitimizes the smear, and you get bogged down responding to the endless attacks.

  by squiddy on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:10:24 PM PDT

  •  Brooks is an utter hack!

    Did you notice how full of bullshit his writing was? The entire puffy "Internet is a place of changing identities and Dean is a product of such" conclusion was some of the worst puffy drivel I have ever seen. No argument whatsoever was presented. Just some sort of puffy, fluffy quasi-philosophical sophomoric bullshit.

    Brooks sucks SO bad ...

    by Copernicus on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:28:00 PM PDT

    •  Re: Brooks is an utter hack!

      It's funny- before he started his column for the Times he was one of my favorite conservatives (for what it's worth).  I enjoyed his focus on cultural criticism and felt that it was reasonably fair.  

      Since he began writing his column he only aspires to readable.

      by Preston on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 05:09:43 PM PDT

      •  Re: Brooks is an utter hack!

        He has his eye on the Safire franchise, if the current elderly occupant ever retires or dies.  At least that's my guess.  Brooks is definitely striving for effect, trying to make a big splash.  As it is, he reads like Andrew Sullivan would read if Sully bothered with a second draft.
        

        "L'enfer, c'est le GOP!" - JJB, from an idea by oratorio

        by JJB on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 05:16:30 PM PDT

    •  Re: Brooks is an utter hack!

      It's funny- before he started his column for the Times he was one of my favorite conservatives (for what it's worth).  I enjoyed his focus on cultural criticism and felt that it was reasonably fair.  

      Since he began writing his column he only aspires to readable.

      by Preston on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 05:13:15 PM PDT

  •  Re: How is the Dean camp responding

    I so disagree. I don't know about this piece in particular, but the Dean campaign, or just his legions of supporters acting independently, seem to have made it a point to (sorry, sports analogy coming) put a full court press on anyone who commits a foul on the candidate. I think the lesson of the Gore campaign, in which a series of stupid and almost completely untrue smears (remember "I invented the internet" and the Love Story stuff?) attached themselves to their intended victim like half melted gum (because the response was not vigorous or swift enough) argues for a different approach. An approach more like (sorry, another Sean-Connery-in-the-Untouchables "the Chicago Way" reference coming), if they bring a knife, we bring a gun. This isn't just about Dean either (though he has been the best at it). All Dems need to train the 'Thugs early that we will fight back.

    As Al Franken described well in his recent book, the 'Thugs are all about lies and hypocrisy. They will just say anything that suits their purposes. The Brooks piece was an unsightly little piece of fact-free garbage, but look at the recent "filibuster" in the Senate over judicial appointees. That was one of the most spectacular orgies of hypocrisy ever, because the 'Thugs served Clinton's judicial nominees so much worse. Yet how much coverage did the crimes of the 'Thugs get? We cannot give them one single inch.

    The beauty of the Dean campaign is that a lot of this kind of response is generated spontaneously from the grassroots, so the campaign actually does not have to respond. In that sense, the main question of this thread, what is the campaign doing about the Brooks piece, is obsolete in this new era of campaign. The question is, what have YOU done? Call Brooks up, send him email...it's our campaign. Have at it.

    by pedestrian xing on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 07:40:51 PM PDT

•  respond to the Brooks

  My instinct was to ignore it.  But I think you are right.  What makes the Dean campaign different is that we don't ignore the dirt - we discredit it.

  by seamus on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:10:40 PM PDT

•  Re: How is the Dean camp responding

  Yes, I'm wondering what the Dean Defense Forces are doing these days.  Still mailbombing?

  by NYCO on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:12:01 PM PDT

  •  Re: How is the Dean camp responding

    I'm on their mailing list, and recieve e-mails from them just about every day.

    by Sauceman on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:32:07 PM PDT

•  How is the Dean camp responding...?

  I'll write to both the opinion page editor and Brooks, will anyone else? Does it even matter? BTW, Brooks implies he's a "rural folk" himself in his last paragraph. He's obviously not.

  by SteveLCo on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:16:32 PM PDT

  •  Re: How is the Dean camp responding...?

    His notion of rural folks and rural living is probably straight out of "Green Acres."

    "L'enfer, c'est le GOP!" - JJB, from an idea by oratorio

    by JJB on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:40:11 PM PDT

  •  Re: How is the Dean camp responding...?

    He was being snarky.

    by Bil on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:40:35 PM PDT

•  Re: How is the Dean

  I read it and it had no effect on me.  I am a Dean supporter.

  I know that Brooks, like every other Republican operative in the media, gets a list of talking points faxed to him by the RNC every morning.  These talking points are picked up on Fox News, the Wall St. Journal, Rush Limbaugh and Safire and Brooks in the Times.  This is the way the Wurlitzer works.  Brooks has been fairly creative so far in putting his own stamp on he "message of the day" but it just seems like the same old to me.

  I guess another way to put it is:  "It did not faze me."

  by Aaron Gillies on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:16:51 PM PDT

•  Responding to the Brooks (s)hit piece

  Something imaginative that would make the press would be nice.

  How about everyone mailing Brooks a Depends adult diaper or two? Because it sure looks to me like he was wetting his pants at the prospect of Dean's rise.

  Just imagine the faces in the NY Times mail room if that happened.

  by sagesource on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:22:45 PM PDT

•  Re: How is the Dean camp responding

  I actually found this piece really amusing--and not that dangerous.

  First, I think this is Brooks' opportunity to show off the result of all the research he has done on the NASCAR voter.  I honestly think he believes that that research makes him more rural than Dean's decades in the most rural state in the union.

  Second, recall that this column is not going to be read in most of rural America.  Brooks may like to write about NASCAR dads, but he isn't read by them.  Certainly not his columns in the NYT, even if it is "the paper of record."  Which means that the people it might do damage with--those who would say, indignantly, "How dare that NY elite say he's rural!" will not read this column.

  Now think about the people who will read this column:  A huge number of them are New Yorkers.  For New Yorkers, Vermont is the definition of rural.  That's where they buy houses if they want to feel really rustic.

  The other large groups who will read this column are "elites" in other urban and suburban areas.  For the most part, they're not going to decide whether or not to vote for Dean on whether or not he is "rural."  And they will note, as some folks upthread have, that Brooks (as a coastal elite) has less claim to the title than the good doctor.  So the column is not going to get much traction with them, either.

  I could be underestimating the value of this column.  And I do appreciate the Dean campaign's usual MO of responding strongly to attacks.  But this one, it seems to me, is so feeble they'd do a lot better to laugh at it, publicly.

  by emptywheel on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:26:35 PM PDT

  •  Re: How is the Dean camp responding

    Send diapers! Send diapers!

    by sagesource on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:30:02 PM PDT

•  Re: How is Dean responding to Brooks hit piece?

  "How is the Dean camp responding to the Brooks hit piece?"

  Probably with laughter.  He's a very funny writer.  I still wish the Times had a comics section, but Brooks is a pretty good substitute.

  "L'enfer, c'est le GOP!" - JJB, from an idea by oratorio

  by JJB on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:28:28 PM PDT

  •  Re: How is Dean responding to Brooks hit piece?

    "How is the Dean camp responding to the Brooks hit piece?"

    Probably with laughter.

    No offense, but that's probably exactly how the Gore campaign responded to the early media slams of their candidate.

    by Angry White Democrat on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:43:53 PM PDT

    •  Re: How is Dean responding to Brooks hit piece?

      You definitely have a point.  For some reason, Dean seems to be earning a respect, however grudging, from the media mavens.  Gore never did.  This sort of thing does have to be watched very carefully, but for now I don't think it's a problem.  People like Brooks are looking desperate, throwing any mud they can, hoping it sticks, and it isn't.  That can change with the next news cycle, of course.

      For the time being, I think Dan Perreten (posting below) has hit on a nice solution of having supporters take the charge in complaining about this kind of thing.

      "L'enfer, c'est le GOP!" - JJB, from an idea by oratorio

      by JJB on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:57:05 PM PDT

•  Re: How is Dean responding to Brooks hit piece?

  Josh Marshall, not a Deaniac by any stretch of the imagination, does a good job of demolishing Brooks.

  BTW, the area of Long Island I grew up in is now as thoroughly developed and subdivided as anywhere in the US, but when we first moved into the house my parents still live in, it was mostly pumpkin farms and tree nurseries.  The piece of property behind ours was a cattle and sheep pasture, and at the age of three I would stand at the wire fence that ran along the property line feeding weeds to the grateful cows.  We had RFD mail delivery and no street address until 1959.  A few years later, the Long Island Expressway reached our part of western Suffolk County, and things began to change very fast.  Does this make me a child of rural America, or a child of Suburbia.  Or both?

  "L'enfer, c'est le GOP!" - JJB, from an idea by oratorio

  by JJB on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:37:53 PM PDT

•  Re: Dean camp responding to the Brooks

  Angry White Dem: You're right. I think we DO need to respond every time there's an attack. The writer gets it that we're watching closely. The editors get it that we're watching. The editor may even talk to the reporter/columnist if too many errors keep cropping up.

  It's vital to call them on their lies.

  Think about it: just this week, Krauthammer questioned Dean's sanity (lie: he carefully edited the transcript so Dean appeared to be saying something he wasn't). Then Brooks goes on the character attack, starting out with a lie: that Dean is somehow a faker by calling himself a "rural person," even though a big part of his upbringing happened in a rural area and he moved to the country precisely because he wanted to live in a rural area.

  It was these kinds of distortions and outright lies that killed Gore.

  I wrote a letter to the editor to the NYT. When you do, don't forget the ground rules: keep it short, make one point, and end with a snappy clincher.

  by Dan Perreten on Tue Dec 09, 2003 at 04:46:34 PM PDT