In a typical display of the utter vacuity of conervative punditry in general and his shtick in particular, David Brooks wastes his New York Times column">Link on a cranky, silly rant today. Instead of addressing any real crises in the world, like the escalating civil war in Iraq, or even a substantial problem facing American families, Brooks indulges his narcissistic obsession with "Bobos'" parenting habits.

Brooks, who resides in a posh D.C. suburb, opens with a scurrilous attack on some supposed denizens of my native Park Slope, Brooklyn. Says Brooks:

Can we please see the end of Park Slope alternative Stepford Moms in their black-on-black materinty tunics who turn their babies into fashion-forward, anti-corporate indie-infants in order to stay one step ahead of the cool police.

Can we stop hearing about downtown parents who dress their babies in black skull slippers, Punky Monkey t-shirts and camo toddler ponchos until the little ones end up looking like sad parody clones of mom and dad?

And, of course, his description of the trend and what's wrong with it, like most conservative cultural moral panic attacks, is totally non-sensical and bereft of any empirical evidence. Stepford Moms don't have jobs, but in my 23 years of living in Park Slope the overwhelming majority of mothers I knew worked, and Brooks cites no evidence to prove otherwise. I also tutored the children of some of those hip downtown parents Brooks rails against. I saw no negative impact on their behavior, educational outcomes or psychological well-being from the trendy attire their parents purchased, and, of course, Brooks offers no evidence that there is any. He merely asserts that parents who dress their children like themselves are failing to respect "the dignity of youth." Who knew Oshkosh Bigosh overalls were so dignified?

More importantly, why is the Times indulging this pabulum? Their Sunday paper is widely read by the country's elite. They have Nicholas Kristof reporting from Ethiopa on one page and Brooks bloviating on fluffy topics on the other. OK, so it's good to balance Kristof's depressing dispatches with something lighter. That's why they have an acerbic politcal-cultural critic in Frank Rich on the Sunday op-ed page. And if they want a conservative they should find one who can offer something of value to the readers who shell out five dollars for a Sunday paper.

Cross-posted on TAPPED. Read the responses here, here and here.