Our Mr. Brooks

David Brooks has the conservative slot on The New York Times' opinion page, so he's the Times' idea of a conservative. (Their previous conservative, William Safire, voted for Clinton.) As such, he had a lot of positive things to say about Obama.

In his latest column, he's having second thoughts:

So programs are piled on top of each other and we wind up with a gargantuan $3.6 trillion budget. We end up with deficits that, when considered realistically, are $1 trillion a year and stretch as far as the eye can see. We end up with an agenda that is unexceptional in its parts but that, when taken as a whole, represents a social-engineering experiment that is entirely new.

[....]

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates — moderate-conservative, in my case — are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was.

I'm sorry, but how is this at all inconsistent with what should have been expected from Obama (and a Democrat-run Congress). That it comes as some sort of surprise to Brooks doesn't say anything about Obama as a politician, but it sure says a lot about Brooks as a pundit.