Why is David Brooks Such a Fraidy Cat?

Check out David Brooks' latest Op Ed, The Big Test.

How many times did he say he was scared or worried? How did he go from being a self-confessed young liberal college student to such a pasty wuss? What happened? Did he fall in love with some like-minded hottie way back in the day? Did she dump him hard and break his heart? That might explain his, "I'll never get hurt again" approach to life.

Fear.

Worry.

Mr. Brooks should check out Michelle Obama's speech back in the summer of '07 in which she said, "I am tired of being afraid" and questioned the place of fear in making decisions.

A mother, a wife, an Obama about to watch her husband run for the highest office in the land, with all the things she had to fear, she refused to let her worries get the best of her.

Mr. Brooks can have his fear and allow his moldering worry to danken his days. But it is courage that clears that allows us to go out and try.

According to Mr. Brooks, there were too many initiatives at once. Too many tasks for the administration to have any hope of accomplishing any one thing. I think this is not a choice that Mr. Obama has made. As he said in his speech, "Difficult decisions were put off for some other time."

That was inaction in action. Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush again. It's not like any of them had the courage to do anything about oil dependence, for instance.

The time is now because nobody did anything for so long.

Mr. Brooks stated that history is littered with the charred remains of government initiatives that have crashed and burned but he fails to notice the triumphs of desegregation, the New Deal and public education.

No, they aren't perfect but we shouldn't call them failures.

Go slow?

Dr. King wrote a letter while locked in a Birmingham jail in which he called out those who urged caution when it came to integration. He wrote that time itself does not make change, people, he wrote, make change. People who wait, don't make anything.

Do I need to mention that there is nothing to fear but...

The time is now.