Words Fail

I made the mistake of reading David Brooks this a.m.. He is, to coin a phrase, an idiot in the classical Greek and contemporary American meaning of the word. As an example, his preferred basis for fixing the economy? Read and weep, he argues that

[w]hile the cameras surround the flamboyant fringes, the rest of the country is on a different mission. Quietly and untelegenically, Americans are trying to repair their economic values.

He maunders on in the same vein. His point is clear, the cause of the current catastrophe is a failure of individual morality, the morals of the 99% if you will, not the corruption, cupidity, and concupiscence of the 1%.

He concludes that

America went through a similar values restoration in the 1820s. Then, too, people sensed that the country had grown soft and decadent. Then, too, Americans rebalanced. They did it quietly and in private.

To the extent that he is talking about anything here, he most likely means the 2nd Great Awakening which was loud and public commitment to spiritual rebirth that was so successful America avoided the boom and bust economy and solved the slavery problem without resort to war. Oh, wait.