So wrong but so right
If I could turn this Michael Gerson idiocy into a post category I would:
The Grown-Up Party, in my experience, is more like a seminar at the Aspen Institute—presentation by David Broder, responses from E.J. Dionne Jr. and David Brooks—on the electoral implications of the energy debate.
Supporting torture is fine, as long as it’s done politely at the Aspen Institute. But FSM forbid anyone should make a joke about Matt Drudge in a private email.
June 30, 2010 7:48 am
Posted in: Burkean bells, We Are All Mayans Now
63 Comments
63 Responses
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 7:52 am · Link
I hope you were wearing your StupidScreen (SPF +250) when you were reading that.
ETA: I must have missed Brooks’ Aspen Institute column about the energy debate. (insert Applebee’s Salad Bar joke here)
Emma - June 30, 2010 | 7:58 am · Link
I woke up with a vicious sinus headache and all I can say is, thank God you warned me about this ahead of time. Reading imbeciles like Gerson this early in the morning could cause serious damage as my head finally exploded.
cleek - June 30, 2010 | 8:02 am · Link
the paternalistic, condescending, self-important name, “Grown-up” is all you need to know about such people. they are our betters. they’re smart and responsible (in both senses of the word). they are the people who matter. we are only naive children, playing in the street, unaware of the big “grown-up” world around us.
spank me, daddy!
Warren Terra - June 30, 2010 | 8:07 am · Link
Brooks and Broder? Two people with nary an idea nor a principle between them, other than that the establishment must be protected? And they’re so predictable, who’d even bother to ask them for advice?
El Cid - June 30, 2010 | 8:12 am · Link
Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them.
Comrade Javamanphil - June 30, 2010 | 8:14 am · Link
There is a reason kids always rebel against the grown-ups. What a bunch of pompous twits.
Sly - June 30, 2010 | 8:17 am · Link
Grown-ups also get old and die.
Here’s to the Washington Post being a grown-up.
NameRequired - June 30, 2010 | 8:20 am · Link
the electoral implications of the energy debate.
So, the important thing is not what to do about global warming, peak oil or whatever, nooooo, grownups talk about the real adult important thing: how will it play in Peoria?.....
GregB - June 30, 2010 | 8:22 am · Link
Thank God Wiegel didn’t call Drudge a goat fucking child molester.
kommrade reproductive vigor - June 30, 2010 | 8:24 am · Link
What a drag it is getting old.
Sly - June 30, 2010 | 8:27 am · Link
@Emma:
I had a similar problem this morning, but someone pointed me too some extra strength acetaminophen.
My favorite is the “Denial-ican,” because I hear that shit all the time at various family gatherings.
geg6 - June 30, 2010 | 8:28 am · Link
@NameRequired:
This is my thought, too. I am so goddamned sick of every goddamned thing being presented as to how it affects electoral calculations. It is a sickness in this country. Not that I would ever read a fucking word that piece of shit Gerson writes, but would it be too fucking hard to discuss how any of this energy discussion affects an average American’s finances or carbon footprint, the science involved, the environmental and climate implications, research and development, international relations, and the financial markets? You know, that boring shit that real live mature adults actually talk about?
Lavocat - June 30, 2010 | 8:32 am · Link
How about “general douchebaggery”? I pity you for having to read this wingnut filth on a regular basis.
NameRequired - June 30, 2010 | 8:40 am · Link
@geg6:
Shut your mouth kid!, the adults are talking….
KCinDC - June 30, 2010 | 8:41 am · Link
Yow. This may be Kathleen Parker’s finest work since the column where she said Obama wasn’t a full-blooded American: “Obama: Our first female president”.
And by “finest” I of course mean “most idiotic”.
mai naem - June 30, 2010 | 8:48 am · Link
This glibertarian professor from Haarvurd is on Morning Ho pimping his libertarian book. OMG. This prick is supported indirectly by government money at his school and he’s talking about getting rid of ss and medicare and decrease financial regulation. I want what he’s smoking.
PeakVT - June 30, 2010 | 8:52 am · Link
@geg6: Actual policy is hard. The Villagers don’t do hard.
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 8:54 am · Link
@KCinDC:
Wow. The mangina president. head/desk.
Mojotron - June 30, 2010 | 8:57 am · Link
replace all instances of “grown” with “fuck” in that column.
middlewest - June 30, 2010 | 9:07 am · Link
@KCinDC: That’s Pulitzer Prize winner Kathleen Parker, don’t forget.
MattF - June 30, 2010 | 9:11 am · Link
Also, Serious People are solicitous of the needs of unfairly maligned African dictators.
Kryptik - June 30, 2010 | 9:11 am · Link
...this whole thing makes my goddamned head hurt. And again, the dumbfucks at places like the WaPo never listen to anyone except the screaming baboons who will never, ever, ever believe such outlets are anything but screaming lefty nests that need to be immolated.
Oh, I’m sorry, I alluded to journalists being set on fire. At least I didn’t call any of them a bitch. Or an illegal immigrant. Or anti-American traitor. Or a class warfare instigator. Or…dare I say….French. Oh, did I forget to mention Marxist? How about Islamist Sympathizer? Objectively Pro-Saddam? Am I missing something here.
Good god damn, fuck them all.
Glen Tomkins - June 30, 2010 | 9:13 am · Link
The “We Are All Mayans Now” category covers the quote quite completely. No need to invent a new category.
Archeologists a millenium from now who might stumble on the Gerson quote will be in about the same state of baffled incomprehension in which we stand in relation to the ancient Mayans. We have all this monumental architecture, all these tens of thousands of pictograms, but can’t really relate to what it was all about. Clearly there is a whole universe of thought expressed here, but, through some combination of that thought being incomprehensibly alien, and the mode of expression being so rigidly formulaic and self-referential, there is no way to penetrate into that universe of thought.
We, sadly, are not a millenium removed from Gerson et al. We get all the obsessively self-referential references, we know what they’re talking about, because we have been forced to live in a world ruled by Gerson and his caste. We are indeed, All Mayans Now.
KCinDC - June 30, 2010 | 9:14 am · Link
Parker has addressed Democratic effeminacy before:
KCinDC - June 30, 2010 | 9:15 am · Link
Yargh, forgot the incantation to get WordPress to allow paragraphs in blockquotes.
dan - June 30, 2010 | 9:16 am · Link
Sounds like a d-bag party.
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 9:19 am · Link
@KCinDC:
Is Parker projecting here? It would be irresponsible to speculate. It would be irresponsible not to.
El Cid - June 30, 2010 | 9:24 am · Link
@KCinDC: I heard Mitt Romney has shoulders so huge you could land a plane on them.
beltane - June 30, 2010 | 9:30 am · Link
The circle of wankers is small yet determined. Rarely before has such a large country been held captive by such a tiny group of small men (and women). There was more dissension and disagreement among politburo insiders in the Soviet Union than there is among our own freedom-loving wankers.
What do they put in those cocktail weenies, anyway?
wag - June 30, 2010 | 9:30 am · Link
I mostly agree with posts by DougJ, and usually find him to be pretty much on target. Today, I call BULLSHIT. Did you even read the damn column? Gerson was arguing in favor of reasoned discourse, with people who actually LISTEN and PERSUADE with actual facts, not some 7th grade la la land where the Ann Coulters and the rest of the bomb throwers of the world rule unchecked. His point about enemiy lists is as much a fact on the Left (see firebaggers) as it is on the Right (Sarah Palin and her never-ending list of people who are mean to her).
I grew up in the Watergate era, and Nixon was a harbinger of our present GOP, with Rove and his enemy lists. I despised Reagan, but at least he didn’t make politics personal (see his real friendship w/ Tip O’Neil, and his ability to work across party lines). Contrast that with Bush’s denigrating of his rivals and the firebagger’s list of Obama’s failures.
I hope that Obama’s real lasting legacy will be the re-civility of American politics.
GregB - June 30, 2010 | 9:37 am · Link
A quick question.
If Obama is our first female president. Just what hell is it (s)he has he been forcing down our throats since (s)he’s been office?
DougJ - June 30, 2010 | 9:41 am · Link
@wag:
I read the whole column and thought it was awful. I’m not saying it didn’t have a few reasonable passages but all in all it’s just as bad or worse than my quote suggests.
Face - June 30, 2010 | 9:44 am · Link
Once again, I have no idea what any of this post means. Drudge email?
Alien-Radio - June 30, 2010 | 9:53 am · Link
@Glen Tomkins:
This.
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 9:54 am · Link
@wag:
Given the fact that David Brooks is enamored of the salad bar at Applebees and claimed just a few nights ago on the News Hour that Obama is admitting that Bush was right in Afghanistan, I find the “actual facts” argument lacking.
Also, there is this, via Wikipedia:
So, yeah, not so much.
ETA: I hear Brooks and Dionne too often on NPR. It’s pundit kabuki theatre. They don’t persuade each other at all. They both mouth their own talking points.
Corner Stone - June 30, 2010 | 10:13 am · Link
@GregB:
This also may explain why (s)he hasn’t used his mighty schlong to plug the oil spill as well.
Bokonon - June 30, 2010 | 10:14 am · Link
Reasoned discourse? The GOP? The party whose candidates are talking about armed revolution and birth certificates and the health care legislation being “treason”? Maybe when the party’s elite gets together at seminars and conferences to listen to speeches and shake hands, slap backs, talk about election strategy and the glories of deregulation and phasing out Social Security … maybe then it is a real warm and collegial exchange among swell, like-minded people. But “reasoned discourse” is not what the GOP uses with the American public. It isn’t how they campaign, and it isn’t how they govern.
Gerson is doing what his party does all the time these days – create his own reality, and spinning like crazy … with the hope that people will buy the bullshit served to them rather than the reality hitting them in the face.
Corner Stone - June 30, 2010 | 10:15 am · Link
@El Cid:
Oooo ~ I could vote for that. Do we have any knowledge of how he smells?
Punchy - June 30, 2010 | 10:19 am · Link
But how does any of this affect the accuracy of Cole’s polling outfit?
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 10:20 am · Link
@Punchy:
Tunch is never wrong.
Corner Stone - June 30, 2010 | 10:20 am · Link
@Face:
Face, I think I get your larger point that this blog employs a lot of self generated memes and shorthands. And that’s good and bad, and worthy of thinking about. I think.
But I see you here at least once in a while and believe that if you honestly do not know what the Drudge e-mail reference is, then that is your problem and not an insiders only gag.
The Drudge/Weigel mess has been the topic of I think 4 front paged posts here and generated probably some 2000 comments over the last days.
And it’s not just a BJ concern. I’ve seen it discussed or written about in a half dozen places I skim through.
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 30, 2010 | 10:23 am · Link
Fuck Gerson, a slimy double talking twerp. He is part of the white wash department of wingnuts gone wild. His job is to false equivalence away the patient zero of ugly. The GOP and non stop intimations of armed revolt and any other atavistic impulse acted out by cretins who can’t put two thoughts together that don’t add up to hatred.
And then cites a couple of examples of liberal response to the violent laced crazy from the Glenn Beck’s and Sharon Angle’s and Rush Limbaugh’s of the world. It is the age old winger sting, covering all angles of the con from the right, fear, intimidation, and patriotic superiority mostly by skin color entitlement. They make me sick and none more than worms like Gerson and Brooks(Mr. Fidget). They lie with a smile and a handshake and launder their comrades bullshit with pretty words of kumbaya. Fuck em.
Roger Moore - June 30, 2010 | 10:32 am · Link
Might I suggest “The Grown-Up Party” as the relevant tag?
geg6 - June 30, 2010 | 10:40 am · Link
Good lord. It was bad enough yesterday to have people screaming that we were mean to Lara Logan, but today I stop in and have someone screaming that we are being mean to Michael fucking Gerson?
What kind of crazy people have been coming here lately?
Jeebus.
Kryptik - June 30, 2010 | 10:48 am · Link
@geg6:
If someone starts to whine about us being unfair to Marc Thiessen, I’m finished, I’m letting you know that right now.
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 10:54 am · Link
@Kryptik:
Leave marc allloooooonnnneeee!
Upper West - June 30, 2010 | 10:58 am · Link
@Bokonon: Ah, but Brooks does it in a “civilized manner” and poses as a “centrist” after advocating the worst of the GOP policies for 30 years.
Face - June 30, 2010 | 10:59 am · Link
@Corner Stone: I tend to do other things than peruse blogs for petty, stupid email nontroversies. Guess it is my fault, then.
Face - June 30, 2010 | 10:59 am · Link
@Corner Stone: I tend to do other things than peruse blogs for petty, stupid email nontroversies. Guess it is my fault, then.
Mumphrey - June 30, 2010 | 11:00 am · Link
I saw this this in the newspaper morning, and I knew when I read the title of the piece and who wrote it that it would be excruciating. I read the whole thing just to see whether it would live down to my low expectations. It did.
I can’t believe the newspaper that dragged Watergate into the light has sunk so low. If Watergate were happening now, Richard Cohen, Gerson, Will, et al., would be sniffling that it’s so unseemly to ask whether the administration—so long as it’s a Republican one—would ever even think about breaking the law. Gerson would be sayng Woodward and Bernstein were part of the “Ugly Party” for telling us about this. Cohen would write a lovely piece about how presidential lawbreaking is just like sex: better with the lights off so nobody who isn’t involved has to find out about it.
About the only things left in the Post worth reading anymore are Carolyn Hax and the funnies. And even the funnies aren’t what they should be, with lame-ass cartoons like Hagar the Horrible, the Family Circus and fucking Peanuts, whose cartoonist died 11 fucking years ago, taking up room that they could give to hard working, funny cartoonists instead.
Mumphrey - June 30, 2010 | 11:10 am · Link
@MattF:
Can we just kill Lanny Davis?
What the hell is wrong with the teabaggers, anyway, that there are scumbags like Davis, Gerson, Broder, Cheney, Rove, Limbaugh, Beck and who knows who all else doing everything they can to screw poor, ignorant fucks like them (the teabaggers), and it’s Obama and Pelosi they want to kill? The people who want to help them? I mean I know Obama’s a darkie and all, and Pelosi’s a woman who ought to be at home where she belongs, but still, you’d think they’d be willing to take help where they can get it; and they sure as shit aren’t getting it from the rich, white old men.
I don’t understand ignorant assholes like that.
Corner Stone - June 30, 2010 | 11:10 am · Link
@Face:
That wasn’t really my point, as I hoped was clear.
This wasn’t a petty nontroversy in the entire blogworld. It splashed everywhere online. It went as wide as Romney’s shoulders and as deep as the musky scent of Fred Thompson.
Ezra Klein of the WaPo was involved, Greenwald at Salon opined on it, The Atlantic got into the fray, and then to cap it off Weigel was hired by MSNBC and on TV with Olbermann.
Now to most folks I agree, this is probably a “What? Who?” kind of thing. But that’s true of about 98% of all the things we get excited or agitated about on the tubes.
But, if someone is online and visits blogs then it was virtually impossible to miss. It was not a small thing.
Emma - June 30, 2010 | 11:14 am · Link
Sly: Unfortunately it doesn’t work on me. Long history, but the upshot is only some of the world’s strongest sinus medication works when the pain really gets going… and it knocks me on my arse for the day.
I have gone out of my way to avoid family reunions since the election… amazing how many excuses people believe when you start I’m sorry but my boss wants me to work (insert day of choice).
rumpole - June 30, 2010 | 11:14 am · Link
One person’s party is another’s 9th Circle of Hell.
matoko_chan - June 30, 2010 | 11:14 am · Link
Nah, not the Ugly Party and the Grown-up Party…...its the Young Ppls party and the Old Ppls party.
Because Rush ( i hope he fails) is definitely in the old ppls party.
You can’t get to cooltown on the conservative express anymore…...it only goes to crazitown.
and boy howdy, does that ever piss them off.
Cheryl from Maryland - June 30, 2010 | 12:07 pm · Link
@arguingwithsignposts: Does Kathleen Parker have a wide stance?
danimal - June 30, 2010 | 12:11 pm · Link
I’m loving that insight. Hilarious and spot-on.
Elizabelle - June 30, 2010 | 12:53 pm · Link
@Mumphrey:
Katharine Graham’s heirs have run the Washington Post into the ground.
The Publisher, granddaughter Katharine Weymouth, absorbed a Harvard and Stanford Law education and she’s allowing Fred Hiatt and similar talents to run the paper into the ground. (Donald Graham enabled that descent.)
Uncanny facial resemblance to her grandmother. And that’s where it stops, apparently.
http://www.washpost.com/gen_in.....ish1.shtml
Second Roger Moore’s suggestion that you add “The Grown-Up Party” as a tag.
How could you not?
Ugly Party vs. Grown-Up Party - June 30, 2010 | 1:28 pm · Link
[...] Balloon Juice proprietor John Cole and co-blogger DougJ both take on the premise of Gershon’s column and their commenters proceed to demonstrate its [...]
General Egali Tarian Stuck - June 30, 2010 | 2:16 pm · Link
Joyner has his delicate nose out of joint, again.
I been trying to clean the place James, but these fucking animals are hopeless.
arguingwithsignposts - June 30, 2010 | 3:58 pm · Link
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Damn, looks like Ann
WinehouseAlthouse had us pegged.Corner Stone - June 30, 2010 | 4:50 pm · Link
Oh James Joyner. You fucking punk bitch. Whyn’t you try taking a little dose in your comments section you punk bitch?
jake the snake - June 30, 2010 | 6:19 pm · Link
@mai naem:
Crack mixed with meth is bad for your health