Krugman and Brooks: Eye to eye for once?

Krugman: "The Rambo Coalition" and Brooks: "The Vietnam Passion"

Two NY Times Op-Ed columnists who are usually at odds presented cases today against Bush and Kerry that are remarkably consonant with each other. Krugman, whose columns I read avidly, calls Bush's attempts to smear Kerry indicative of a "Rambo" mentality that projects a vision of the world at once simplistic and ultimately blindered and destructive. Brooks, whose columns I often cannot stomach, writes of the disappearance of Kerry the outspoken moralist and his replacement by Kerry the diplomatic double-speaker. Both of these criticisms, it seems to me, are valid. And yet, I'd still take Kerry over Bush, because I've seen what the Bush White House has done at home and abroad in four years, and I'm much less fearful of what a Kerry administration might do by obsequious and overly cautious omission. In short, give me a politically weak president any day over an ideologue.