NY Times columnist David Brooks recently spoke here at UVA on the deepening of the political divide in America. He suggested that both sides construct their own reality, distorting the facts to suit their partisan preconceptions. During the Q&A I asked him, "Am I correct to understand that you think both sides are equally guilty of distorting reality?" His reply, in a nutshell, was yes. One of the things he cited as distortion on the right was taking Kerry's "reducing terrorism to a nuisance" quote out of context.

Fast forward ten days to Brooks' latest column:

The nuisance is back!

Remember when John Kerry told Matt Bai of The Times Magazine that he wanted to reduce the terrorists to a nuisance? Kerry vowed to mitigate the problem of terrorism until it became another regrettable and tolerable fact of life, like gambling, organized crime and prostitution...

Well, the Osama bin Laden we saw last night was not a problem that needs to be mitigated. He was not the leader of a movement that can be reduced to a nuisance.

Brooks is a master of seeming moderate and reasonable in person, but in print he becomes just another spin man.