Letters
Does the Greek letter chi stand for Chicago?

Writer can’t brook Brooks
It was interesting to learn in the Magazine (“Everybody’s a Critic,” February/04) that David Brooks, a recent addition to the New York Times op-ed page, has a U of C degree. Brooks’s March 27 column makes clear the extent of his dishonesty and lack of ethics.

Over the last two years various former government employees have decided they must tell the truth and reveal the lies of George W. Bush. Orders have immediately gone out from the Bush administration to punish those who dared to tell the truth. In the case of Joseph Wilson, who revealed a falsehood about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program, the response was to reveal that his wife was an intelligence agent, thus destroying her career.

Another recent example was Richard Clarke, who made clear that Bush’s obsession with Iraq diverted attention from actual terrorists. Out came the orders: denounce Clarke. Even a member of the Bush cabinet, Colin Powell, while trying to defend Bush, refused to say anything bad about Clarke, but David Brooks obeyed the orders of the Bushites to the letter and wrote this scurillous column denouncing Clarke. This made clear how totally corrupt Brooks is.

While the University of Chicago is not to blame that David Brooks emerged devoid of ethics, it might have been more judicious for the Magazine not to have boasted about the U of C’s attempt to educate him.

Lincoln Wolfenstein, SB’43, SM’44, PhD’49
Pittsburgh

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