MB Civic

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s Panglossian column “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” (May 11) looks at the glass as being half full. Some of us see it as two-thirds empty and getting lower.

Mr. Brooks doesn’t say that our economy is not the world economy and is not growing at 4.9 percent. He doesn’t say that the United States must borrow $2 billion each day just to break even. He doesn’t say that United States car manufacturers are about ready to go bankrupt, that three major airlines are already bankrupt and probably more to come.

Our economy is good for the wealthy, but the standard of living for the average American is the same as it was 30 years ago. There is no planning on how to handle our oil shortage and no light at the end of the tunnel in Iraq. I for one am not happy.

Frank Greenhalgh
Amityville, N.Y., May 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

David Brooks tells us not to worry about the past, and instead focus on the bright future awaiting us all. I followed his advice.

I saw a future in which militarized regimes headed by bellicose, anti-American tyrants possess growing stockpiles of nuclear weapons; American civil liberties have become a rare and outdated privilege; Africa lies bleeding from the unstanched wounds of genocide and disease; and the threat of catastrophic climate change as a result of global warming looms ever larger.

I’m afraid to look any further.

Gilad Edelman
New York, May 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

There is a fine line between optimism and eyeball-popping spin. David Brooks has crossed the line.

“Look around at all the green shoots of political renewal,” he wrote. Though the calendar tells us it’s May, it’s actually harvest time. Republicans are reaping what they sowed. What he described as “a sense of flexibility and promise” is actually incumbents bending over backward trying to distance themselves from their broken promises.

We won’t be fooled again.

Barbara J. Miller
Eagan, Minn., May 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

Bob Herbert and David Brooks delivered a one-two punch in their columns on May 11. Mr. Herbert excoriated the Democrats for lack of courage (“Where’s the Beef?”), while Mr. Brooks pointed to new thinking in both parties.

Mr. Herbert and Mr. Brooks are thinking inside the box. Under the powerful influences of big money and political polling, both political parties are in the same box.

Big money has received the most attention, but polling is just as bad. Polling is a great way to discover what flavor of ice cream will sell, but it is a terrible way to make complex policy decisions.

Representative democracy is not a position; it is a process. The country needs a new party — one that stands up for democratic processes.

The new party — perhaps led by Senator Barack Obama, Senator Lindsey Graham, Gov. Mitt Romney and former Gov. Mark Warner — would restore democratic processes that have been so damaged by big money and political polling.

Phillip Certain
Madison, Wis., May 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

I agree with David Brooks that healthy shifts toward solid, yet flexible and practical, centrist leadership in either party are reasons to be happy. However, perhaps the reason for the vast majority of Americans’ worry is that they know that they must wait until January 2009 to begin to experience such leadership again.

Evan J. Bonnett
DeKalb, Ill., May 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

In “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” David Brooks takes comfort in the fact that President Bush’s approval ratings are higher than Senator John Kerry’s and Al Gore’s. But is a president’s approval rating really to be judged by comparison to a rival in a prior election?

Did anyone compare Kennedy’s popularity to Nixon’s in 1962, Reagan’s to Carter’s in 1982 or Bush’s to Dukakis’s in 1990? Hardly.

The reference group for presidents is other presidents, and that is the proper context in which to judge Mr. Bush’s performance and current 31 percent approval rating.

Ed Federman
Acton, Mass., May 11, 2006

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To the Editor:

I appreciate David Brooks’s optimism, but then I remember the Titanic, the ship that could never sink.

Prakash Navare
Succasunna, N.J., May 11, 2006