Conservative journalist David Brooks who writes for the New York Times had an editorial titled "calling Ross Perot" that was published in the Times Picayune on January 30, 2010. The article was supposed to inform the people that the country needs a "saner Ross Perot" at this time in our history. Mr. Brooks has been a regular commentator on the News Hour for several years and appears on other T.V. programs from time to time. Using Ross Perot as an example to describe the situation that the country faces is typical of conservative journalists who can not compete in the real world in facing the truth and facts as they happen.
One comment Mr. Brooks made was "The deficits are the issue around which everything else revolves. The mounting deficits both symbolize Washington's institutional dysfunction and genuinely threaten the nation." But Mr. Brooks knows full well the deficit and federal debt was under control until Ronald Reagan took office and his administration started the march of increased federal deficit spending and debt and was continued through the administrations of Bush 41 and Bush 43, the latter who put deficit spending and debt through the stratosphere. Yet Mr. Brooks was silent all those 20 years of debt creation.
Thank the good Lord the Clinton administration came in between and returned the nation to balanced budgets and surpluses. Since a saner Ross Perot will never be President, Mr. Brooks should have used Bill Clinton as the model. Conservatives never like to talk about the Clinton administration because it reminds the people how well the country did on Mr. Clinton's watch and how he put the federal government's fiscal house in order and reversed the deficit spending and debt of Reagan/Bush.
Mr. Brooks also failed to understand how President Obama is changing the status quo and will continue to do so. Journalists should be on the side of truth and facts when they report to the people regardless of party affiliation. The massive deficits and debt by Reagan/Bush should have been addressed by journalists at the time it was happening, but they choose to look the other way. The republican ideology of speak no evil about another republican is alive and well but brings out the worst in journalism. The debt burden has been put on President Obama and now all of a sudden journalists see the light and want to talk about the deficit. Fox news even ran a headline that it was President Obama who was responsible for Mr. Bush's last fiscal year budget that came in with a record deficit of $1.4 trillion. Unlike the last three republican Presidents, President Obama will stand strong and face the issue
