The Filibuster Lives - NYTimes.com Gail Collins: David, I just realized something - what with vacations and your upcoming book leave, this will be our last public conversation until January. I hate to think of all the fiscal cliffs I'll have to negotiate without you. David Brooks: Sometimes when I'm in the middle of covering a sequestration battle, or any fiscal matter, and I'm feeling lonely and afraid, when I'm suffering through a deep dark night of the soul, I call the 24-hour Congressional Budget Office Emotional Support and Deficit Projection Hotline. The counselors there are wonderfully compassionate, offering spiritual sustenance and even interest payment projections in the out-years. Gail: Thanks for the tip. I'm excited about reading your next book, which is about how to develop a rich inner life, right? David: Exactly. I've always wanted to find a project I could work on with Donald Trump, so here it is. Gail: Well, my inner life can't wait. For this going-away conversation, let's hop around the political scenery a bit. What did you think about the filibuster agreement in the Senate? David: I'm for it. Anything that will basically preserve Senate rules. Some people love the House. I love the Senate and not only for the 100-egos-in-a-fishbowl aspect of it. I love the way the rules weaken the leaders and strengthen any member who is creative and enterprising. Also, our founders really did not believe in simple majoritarianism. I'm afraid if they take away the filibuster even on presidential appointments, then pretty soon whatever party is in power will want to gradually erode minority rights on everything. Gail: John McCain appears to have been the hero. You were a big McCain fan in days of yore. Are you pleased to see him re-evolve from cranky, disgruntled loser back to freewheeling, bipartisan maverick? David: We have been seeing more of the old McCain. I thought he was outstanding on immigration too. I wonder if the maverick is returning or the issues just happen to be ones that bring out his independent side. He never was a pure party loyalist. He's generally worked most effectively as a member of a gang or something outside the traditional partisan structure. Gail: I still nurture the theory that the transformation was set off by the arrival of those fun-loving pranksters, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. McCain's bitterness about being beaten for president by an inexperienced newbie like Barack Obama paled when he had to share his Senate space with kids who have been in town six months and are already sniffing around Iowa and New Hampshire. But about the filibuster - I know the deal is progress, but to me it looks as if they've only moved things forward about a 10th of an inch. The Senate Republicans will no longer block executive nominations just because they don't like the agency in question. Whoop-de-do. David: "A 10th of an inch." The official Senate motto. Gail: However, I was inspired by the way the Senators worked things out in that long evening meeting in the old Senate chambers. That was, of course, the place where Representative Preston Brooks beat Senator Charles Sumner with his walking stick in 1856. Which allows us to say, whenever our current Congress appears to be running amok: "Well, at least nobody got beaten to a pulp with a cane." David: Actually I think we're overdue for another melee. I'm picturing it like the gang warfare scene in that Will Ferrell movie, "Anchorman." I'm picturing Chuck Schumer's legs wrapped around Ted Cruz's neck. Gail: You've written a lot about the immigration bill. Do you think there's any chance the House will ever pass a serious reform? David: It's possible but there are just too many ways that they could fritter away this thing into nothing. Among other things, there's no event that will force them to act by a certain date so the tendency to drag their feet will be overwhelming. This is another reason I prefer the Senate. That body is just better at crafting majorities that work across ideological lines. Gail: How about my favorite, the farm bill? I did find it shocking that the House would pass the agriculture part - much of which is a giveaway to wealthy corporations - and leave out the food stamps for poor people. David: Ross Douthat had a very good take on this. A few weeks ago I got myself all wound up to write a column on the ridiculous expansion of the food stamp program. I saw how fast the number of enrollees in the program has exploded and I figured the standards for inclusion must have totally been eviscerated, bringing in many people who don't deserve to be on federal support. This is the sort of column that is sort of fun to do because it will drive some share of our audience crazy. But when I did some research and got a look at the demographics of the people who are on the newly expanded rolls, I realized that even today most people who receive food stamps deserve to be in the program. The program has expanded not because the rules have been erased but because the structure of poverty has changed. Gail: There's nothing more tragic for people in our business than discovering a government program works just fine. David: Another perfectly good column idea down the tubes. Gail: How do you feel about the future of the Republican Party? I think the Republicans" problems with the much-discussed Hispanic population go way beyond the immigration reform bill. Hispanic voters want more than just a path to citizenship for their illegal friends and relatives. They also want affordable health care, which huge proportions of them don't have now. And a higher minimum wage. Over the next 10 years, if the Democrats follow through on their voter registration efforts, Texas is going to go from red to purple. And that would be the beginning of the end for the Republicans. David: I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans did decently in the upcoming midterms, especially on the Senate side, which will reinforce all the unfortunate tendencies that will lead to another national defeat in 2016. I say that as one who generally thinks it is hard for one party to win three presidential elections in a row. But I basically buy the demographic argument now, and there is no real hunger for change in the G.O.P. Every national election defeat gets softened by a midterm pickup. Gail: One last question before you go back to working on your book. I know we've agreed that politicians don't generally seem to have a rich inner life. Any exceptions? David: Anthony Weiner? I'm trying to think. Obama does have a lot going on inside. Jim Cooper, a Blue Dog Democrat from Tennessee, is very reflective, not always to his political benefit. I guess I'd give Jerry Brown the benefit of the doubt too. I find you can usually count on the ones in Bible study groups, whether they manage to live up to their own creed, to have at least applied a set of standards to evaluate their own behavior, however unambitiously. Gail: O.K., one more last question. When we come back to conversing in January, I suspect we'll still be fighting about the same things we're fighting about now. I challenge you to give me one positive prediction to bring into the New Year. David: The Middle East. That whole situation will definitely have resolved itself by then.