I never thought I'd say this, but...
I miss William Safire. Say what you will about him -- and I've said it all -- but at least his columns used Saul Bellow for literary references, and one could do a lot worse. To prove the point, one of Safire's conservative successors on the NYTimes op-ed page, David Brooks, today provides a hi-LAR-ious send-up of Harry Reid, with thick allusions to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (sorry, TimesSelect only, and I'm more sorry for my being a subscriber than for the inability of any of you to access the column). I don't know how to sum up Dan Brown's contributions to American literature any better than to say that the first "word" of praise on his website is "Unputdownable." Go ahead, check with Safire about that one.
The column is nearly unreadable, which makes me think that it may actually be a very good imitation of The Da Vinci Code, and basically ridicules Harry Reid for his obsession with finding the secret proof that the White House deliberately misled the country into war with Iraq. Fair point, since if we were misled, why did we find all those WMDs? And if the intelligence had been cherry-picked, why was it absolutely spot-on in suggesting that the US troops would be welcomed in the streets? The Trouble With Harry (which, come to think of it, would have been a much better title than the one Brooks provides, The Harry da Reid Code) is that things have gone so well in Iraq that it's very hard to fault anything that Cheney's office might have done in the run-up to the war.
Or so Brooks would have it. My suspicion is actually that Brooks read The Da Vinci Code at some point in an effort in order to connect with the good people of the Red States, about whom he writes with such authority. Having spent a fair amount of time in the Red States (and, frankly, having enjoyed most of that time, my political opinions notwithstanding), I still think I would give David Brooks my vote as New York Times Columnist Most Likely to Get His Ass Kicked If He Ever Entered a Red State. John Tierney, by the way, wins my Vote as New York Times Headshot Most Likely to Appear in a Community Theater Playbill for "The Fantasticks." I think Tierney would make a wonderful El Gallo.
Anyway, I kind of miss William Safire.