The Times Continues its Fine Reporting

of some alternate universe.

This weekend, David Brook's reviewed the book The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. His review ends with the line "The best way to win votes — and this will be a shocker — is to offer people an accurate view of the world and a set of policies that seem likely to produce good results. This is how you make voters happy."

I sure hope Mr. Brooks isn't advising any presidential candidates because he is dangerously out of touch with reality. (Or he's in third grade.) Politics has nothing to do with offering people an accurate view of the world. Politics has nothing to do with offering people a set of policies. Politics has to do with manipulating people's emotions and reducing your argument down to the simplest visual image possible repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum.