David Brooks, still described in some less-informed circles that don’t watch PBS or read The New York Times as a “conservative columnist,” tells the Berkshire Eagle that Barack Obama, the man Brooks believes is either as steady as a redwood forest or as majestic as a snow-capped mountain, will win the election handily and reign over a liberal-dominated America, and conservatives may end up in the wilderness for decades:

NORTH ADAMS — Fourteen days before the election, conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks predicted that Sen. Barack Obama will defeat Sen. John McCain in the Nov. 4 presidential election by nine percentage points.

During a chat with local press prior to a question-and-answer session with students at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts yesterday, Brooks went on to say that this election will be the end of a national Republican power arc that has been largely in place since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and on the decline since 1995.

He said this election will mark a “sea change in American politics” and that the Democratic reign could last as long as 10 to 15 years…

“I saw Republicanism rise and now I’ve seen it fall,” Brooks continued. “It’s become intellectually exhausted, incurious and the party is getting narrower and narrower. So the people who used to feel that they’re Republicans no longer do.”

He noted that while Obama’s candidacy has sparked a wave of new voter registration among the young and African-Americans, he doesn’t believe that will substantially affect the political ideology of the nation. “This is a center-right country, and it still is,” he said.

Intellectually exhausted, incurious, getting narrower and narrower. That is a brilliant dissection of the New York Times editorial pages.