David Brooks' "Growth" at the Times?

There's a concept among the liberals and the media echo chamber: when a conservative slips a bit to the left, they say s/he has "grown" or become "more open". It's this cocktail party verbal diarrhea that bounces around Beltway circles and makes squishy conservatives like Justices O'Connor and Kennedy, David Gergen, Bill Cohen, and others love their own positive press so much that they begin to appease (however subconsciously) their liberal dog-trainers.

The result, logically incoherent statements like this from David Brooks, who went from The Weekly Standard to The New York Times:

Twelve independent and moderate senators - six Democrats and six Republicans - spent much of last week trying to work out a deal to head off a nuclear showdown over judges.

They agreed on the basic approach. The Democrats would allow votes on a few of the blocked judicial nominees (Priscilla Owen, William Pryor and Janice Rogers Brown, I'm told). In exchange the Republicans would drop a couple of the nominees (probably Henry Saad and William Myers).

The Democrats would promise not to use the filibuster, except under extreme circumstances. The Republicans would promise not to exercise the nuclear option except under extreme circumstances.

That was the deal, and a very fair one, too.

In other words, to Brooks it is FAIR that the Senate Republicans sell out the CONSTITUTIONAL power of the President to nominate judges and fair that the President is forced by a militant minority to withdraw certain judicial nominations even though those nominations WOULD BE APPROVED if put to the full Senate.

Mr. Brooks is losing his logical capacity in the crucible of the Times.