David Brooks is Just Plain Silly

He writes or says, I am not sure about the mechanics of his "Conversation" with  Gail Collins,

A smart, prosperous-looking man came up to me in a general store and said he used to read The New York Times but then he realized the contents are entirely made up, and concocted for brainwashing purposes, so he no longer does. He said his life was much better now.

Wouldn't you have left off the notion that someone who thinks something as madly crazy as that is "smart." I mean he grants that the fellow's prosperity is only a potential based on appearances but the smart is wholly unmodified.