David Brooks

We had faith in our alliances.

Barack Obama could run that 2008 campaign filled with idealism and hope.

And he could run against a guy, John McCain, filled with a sense of honor.

And we've lost faith in institutions, we've lost faith in ourselves, and we've lost faith in each other.

And so, to me, one of the reasons, you know, I want to devote more of my life to academia and to teaching young and to writing longer essays is just, I think we have a spiritual and relational and moral crisis we're dealing with.

And I figured I could make some little contribution over there.

You know, I was once at a dinner that Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, had with a bunch of journalists.

And he said, every reform I initiated in my first term turned out exactly backwards from how I expected it to.

And he said, I'm an anti-reform reformer now because it never works.

And that's why I'm a conservative.

And to quote Edmund Burke, you should operate on society the way you would operate on your father.

as humbly, as incrementally, and as delicately as possible.

So I would be for reforming DHS, not tearing it down.

Arden Patriots!

Well, leaving the New York Times is not joyous.

I'm filled with intense gratitude and incensed terror because I have to do something new.

But I had a weird moment where sometimes you run into a great teacher.

And this is going to sound trivial, but it produced tremendous joy for me in the last week.

I played tennis off and on my whole life.

My backhand is okay.