haven't had one of these in a while

OH MY GOD DAVID BROOKS DON'T EVEN TRY ANYMORE

Brooks gushes about McCain; some choice quotes:

The first thing that still strikes one about McCain is his energy. In his book, “The Nightingale’s Song,” Robert Timberg runs through primal force metaphors to describe the young McCain.

So what might a "primal force metaphor" be? A lion? An enraged bull? A lightening bolt, perhaps? No:

“Being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck,” Timberg wrote.

Since when were trains primal, I ask you?

Telling the truth is a skill. Those who don’t do it habitually lose the ability, but McCain is well-practiced and has the capacity to face unpleasant truths. While other conservatives failed to see how corporations were insinuating themselves into their movement, McCain went after Boeing contracts.

Presumably, McCain was attacking Boeing contracts, and not, as you imply, Mr. Brooks, trying to get them? And yet, although truth-telling "is a skill," which McCain has, unusually, cultivated,

There have been occasions when McCain compromised his principles for political gain, but he was so bad at it that it always backfired.

NB Mr. Brooks: "well, he has completely caved to expediency, but it didn't work" isn't, in fact, a very good defense.

More often, he is driven by an ancient sense of honor, which is different from fame and consists of the desire to be worthy of the esteem of posterity.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! (I shall pass over, so to speak, the question of whether or not this is a Good Thing in a democratic leader.)

Everyone will make their own political choices, and you might plausibly argue that the qualities John McCain possesses are not the ones the country now requires. But character is destiny, and you will never persuade me that he is not among the finest of men.

That human point seemed worth remembering, even amid the layers of campaign pretense.

Yes, Mr. Brooks is just an ordinary man of the people, artless and simple, one decent man sticking up for another. Well, you know what they say about a false premise.