In David Brooks's column...

...this morning, "The Lost Decade?," he writes (my emphasis):

This crisis has many currents, which merge and feed off each other. There is the lack of consumer demand, the credit crunch, the continuing slide in housing prices, the freeze in business investment, the still hefty consumer debt levels and the skills mismatch — not to mention regulatory burdens, the business class’s utter lack of confidence in the White House, the looming explosion of entitlement costs, the public’s lack of confidence in institutions across the board.

Shouldn't "the business class’s utter lack of confidence in the White House" really read "the business class's utter hatred for this White House?" Because, really, it's not a "lack of confidence," is it? Isn't it that this White House, unlike the previous one (or some future Republican one) won't let businesses just run amok and do whatever they want, consequences to the rest of America be damned? Let's face it: businesses want the fewest regulations and lowest taxes possible (preferably none) in order to maximize profits. What they really want in the White House is a useful idiot -- like W. or Paul Ryan. Instead, they have to put up with a president who represents all of America.

Secondly, isn't the phrase, "looming explosion of entitlement costs," only half the story? What about lost revenue from the disastrous Bush tax cuts? Why doesn't Brooks mention that part of the equation?

Almost comically, Brooks goes on to say:

Yet the ideologues who dominate the political conversation are unable to think in holistic, emergent ways. They pick out the one factor that best conforms to their preformed prejudices and, like blind men grabbing a piece of the elephant, they persuade themselves they understand the whole thing.

Come on, Mr. Brooks. You're better than this.