If you want to see how liberals age, visit Washington D.C. bookstore Politics and Prose. Conservative columnist David Brooks braved the crowd there Wednesday tonight, touting his latest book, The Social Animal. Brooks’ favored-son status among the liberal intelligentsia slightly diminishes the heroism of his trip, though tensions did rise when he praised Reagan’s economic revolution.
The assembled laughed if Brooks was witty, gasped if he was shocking, and when he was sentimental a few shed a tear (just one). But, mingling with the crowd, one senses that they are not a happy bunch. Particularly the men. In their dour expressions one sees a warning to the next generation against a life lived with a gender-neutral ideology, which apparently is a vitality-sapping corrosive.
