After carefully transcribing and then posting the nearly indecipherable argument forwarded yesterday on NPR’s All Things Considered by David Brooks, I thought, well, even the smartest people in the world can make a verbal hash of things when put on the spot with a live radio or television interview. I had a nagging feeling that there must have been a well-thought-ought perspective knocking around in those words somewhere. Was I being unfair to the man?

And this morning — what do you know! — I open up Friday’s New York Times (I didn’t get to it yesterday) and see an op-ed length treatment of the very argument Brooks tried to make on NPR. Alas, even when Brooks had a couple of days to think about each and every word, he still managed to be only a smidge less opaque than on NPR.