David Brooks’ column in tomorrow’s Times has a more nuanced and literary version of the ‘CIA sold the president a bill of goods‘ line.
What we need, says Brooks, isn’t less nudging and hammering from politicians, but more. Game-theory, bureaucratic thinking, and hyper-rationalism aren’t the answer to the nimble, quick-on-its-feet, lickety-split irrationalism and nihilist violence of the early 21st century terrorist threat.
There’s probably a lot of truth in that (though if you read histories of the early CIA you’ll see that quite a number of the luminaries were, shall we say, more than a bit in touch with the irrational.)
But I don’t know how Brooks gets past the fact that these politicians were pushing for conclusions (and putting them in the president’s speeches) three or four times more erroneous than those offered up by the latter-day Von Neumanns at Langley.
And, after reading his column, I don’t think Brooks does either.
