In the Republican Party, visceral tea-party populism has overwhelmed Brooksian intellectual centrism on the Democratic side, Brooks sees overreach. In the media world, his brand of good-natured, low-heart-rate, quasi-academic analysis, disseminated twice a week on the New York Times’ op-ed page and in weekly appearances on PBS and NPR, has been supplanted by spluttering hyperbole IV-ed directly into America’s arteries 24 hours a day.

All current trends in public life point away from people like him. Bennett’s offense: He joined the Democrats in voting for the bailouts and co-sponsored a health-care bill that would require everyone to buy insurance. Senate has lost a bid for the Republican nomination thanks in part to strong opposition from the tea-partyers. The outrage in question is the ouster of Utah senator Bob Bennett, who after eighteen years in the U.S. He raises his eyebrows, but not his voice.

The signs of fury are there-if you know where to look. “This is a damn outrage, to be honest,” he tells David Gregory on Meet the Press. D avid Brooks is angry-for David Brooks, at least.