David Brooks seems to forget it was the tea party movement that handed the Republicans control of the House in 2010. Today he laments the rise, again, of conservatives and views his ideological drift to the left as standing still with conservatism moving away from him. He really does lack serious self-awareness.How silly.In a column titled The Possum Republicans poor David Brooks laments

All across the nation, there are mainstream Republicans lamenting how the party has grown more and more insular, more and more rigid. This year, they have an excellent chance to defeat President Obama, yet the wingers have trashed the party’s reputation by swinging from one embarrassing and unelectable option to the next: Bachmann, Trump, Cain, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum.

Similar statements were made about Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and John McCain. Today, Democrats praise each of them as more reasonable than the current crop of candidates. When they die, the Democrats and people like David Brooks will herald them as saints of conservatism whose legacies are polluted by the present crop of conservatives.David Brooks is a man who liked the crease of Barack Obama’s pants after years of flirting with John McCain. You’ll excuse me if his lament falls flat with me. But the most striking thing is his last line after spending a few hundred words lamenting the resurgence of across the board conservatives. He ends with

First they went after the Rockefeller Republicans, but I was not a Rockefeller Republican. Then they went after the compassionate conservatives, but I was not a compassionate conservative. Then they went after the mainstream conservatives, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Does he really intend to compare the tea party to Nazis?

He is playing off German preacher Martin Niemöller’s statement regarding German intellectuals and how they sat quietly by as the Nazis rose to power.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

I know many people who use paraphrases of Miemoller’s line as jokes to highlight the absurdity of various absurd situations, but I don’t get the sense David Brooks is joking. I assume he is finally comfortable sharing ink with the intellectual heavyweights at the New York Times who, through Walter Duranty, gave cover to Stalin’s purges and apologized to the world for Reagan beating evil.I would also point out that the Rockefeller Republicans were losers and compassionate conservatism put us on the brink of financial ruin. As for being a “mainstream conservative,” David Brooks writes at Walter Duranty’s paper in New York City.Oh, and David Brooks, please look up Godwin’s Law.