David Brooks' column today was a real piece of work. I haven't had time to compose a proper response, but luckily the weblog world has lots of smart people one can just quote instead of writing everything yourself. :)

Kathryn Cramer: What Republican Strategists Want the Democratic Faithful to Know

...Brooks, acting as liason between Republican strategists and the Democratic party faithful, informs us that Republicans want us to know that they think they have a better chance of beating Howard Dean than Kerry or Lieberman.

This is of course just a public service announcement aimed at helping out the Democrats, I'm sure. Thanks, Dave. That was good of you.

And thanks, guys, how would us dopey liberals ever figure stuff out without your helpful pointers? Especially now that the war in Iraq isn't looking like such a good idea after all and candidates who supported it or waffled are beginning to look foolish. Without Republican strategists to give us advice, why, we might have thought that Dean was becoming an increasingly strong candidate because he had the courage to stand up to all that nonsense.

Also, from BusyBusyBusy:

Shorter David Brooks: Republican pollsters and strategists really, truly want you to know that they have absolutely no fear of Howard Dean's candidacy.

I've said it before: taking advice from your opponents on how to beat them is really, really stupid.