The best thing David Brooks ever said.

When he's not being a republican toady (oh wait, I'm sorry, appologist) on the evening news he's actually almost cogent. Today he refered to the hurricane response, as the anti-9/11 because of the way in which it will undermine (rightfully so) people's faith in government looking out for their interests.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/political_wrap/july-dec05/bop_9-2.html

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DAVID BROOKS: This is -- first of all it is a national humiliation to see bodies floating in a river for five days in a major American city. But second, you have to remember, this was really a de-legitimization of institutions.

Our institutions completely failed us and it is not as if it is the first in the past three years -- this follows Abu Ghraib, the failure of planning in Iraq, the intelligence failures, the corporate scandals, the media scandals.

We have had over the past four or five years a whole series of scandals that soured the public mood. You've seen a rise in feeling the country is headed in the wrong direction.

And I think this is the biggest one and the bursting one, and I must say personally it is the one that really says hey, it feels like the 70s now where you really have a loss of faith in institutions. Let's get out of this mess. And I really think this is so important as a cultural moment, like the blackouts of 1977, just people are sick of it.

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