CNBC'S JOE KERNEN QUESTIONS NYT'S DAVID BROOKS' CONSERVATISM, DEFENDS RUSH

On CNBC's "Squawk Box," yesterday, Joe Kernen questioned New York Times' "token conservative," David Brooks true conservatism, and took aim at the liberal mainstream media's diminishment of the tea party movement, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh.

In Brooks' column yesterday titled, "The Wizard of Beck," he attempts to create a "history lesson" that portrays the influence of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly as damaging to the Republican Party, while questioning the real size and impact of their respective audiences. In essence, Brooks attempts to throw all of conservative talk radio under the Republican Party bus. Brooks writes:

"It is a story of remarkable volume and utter weakness. It is the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche — even in the Republican Party. It is a story as old as “The Wizard of Oz,” of grand illusions and small men behind the curtain."

Kernen, in response to Brooks' article, couldn't have disagreed more:

"Everyone at these town hall meetings was a plant or a nutcase? Everything's written off, there's really no one that disagrees with the edicts of [liberals]?...How can Fox News double MSNBC and CNN combined? How do they have the top ten?...Air America can't sell an ad. There's no one that wants to listen to them...Let me guess: liberals are so cerebral and erudite that they don't, they don't, they're at the opera. They're at the opera, they don't listen to talk radio or watch TV. They're reading Sartre. Is that what you're telling me? I love that, David Brooks is a conservative? Well you tell Rush that his 100 million a year, or whatever he makes isn't real. Those are, those are fake 100 million. David Brooks, I mean is he a wolf in sheep's clothing? Who is this guy, I mean, really, he's the conservative? You know what, he's conservative for the Times."