David Brooks sure does have it in for my man Howard Dean. In his last column, he went after the Doctor Governor for being too similar to Bush, attacking Dean's populist base of support by painting him as a playboy elitist. I debunked that here. In todays NYT, Brooks devotes his second consecutive column to attacking Dean, this time by putting forth the notion that the GOP would love to face him. It's a shrewed attack, but utterly baseless.

First of all, Brooks is an opinion columnist and a known GOP operative, not a journalist. He's playing for the other team, so the fact that he's attacked Dean twice in a row and is trying to push the notion that Bush is laughing at the prospect of facing off with Ho Ho should be taken with a shaker of salt. He doesn't name names or quote anyone. His objective is quite clearly to sew doubt among Dean's base of support.

Secondly, Bush is polling consistantly in the low 50s. An internal White House poll pegged him at 49%. He's not laughing at the prospect of facing anyone right now.

David Brook is attempting to sew Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt among the ranks of Democrats with regards to Dean. It's a pretty blatant and transparent attempt, so I don't think it will work. Mostly, it's up to the rest of to laugh this kind of BS off.