David Brooks: 'New York Times' Let's Me Do Whatever I Want

During an interview with Katie Couric, New York Times columnist David Brooks might have accidentally revealed why the Times is falling apart and bleeding cash. Brooks reveals he can do whatever he wants, has never had a performance review of any kind, and can write about anything:

The upsides of the job are that he can literally do whatever he wants. “I’ve never attended a meeting at the Times. We can write about anything. I’ve been at the Times for over a decade; I’ve never had a performance review. We can go anywhere we want. And we are just left alone.” And women approach you in public, so it’s basically every nerd’s dream job.

The fact that Brooks can do whatever he wants was pretty apparent in December of 2013, when he wrote this memorable line to back up his belief that we should chuck the separation of powers and give the president even more power:

This is a good moment to advocate greater executive branch power because we’ve just seen a monumental example of executive branch incompetence: the botched Obamacare rollout.

Brooks teaches a course in Humility at Yale and is advertised at the Times as a conservative columnist.