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Centrist Psychobabble

by John Cole

Driftglass reads BoBo so you don’t have to.

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September 27, 2011 11:27 am Posted in: Assholes, Both Sides Do It!, David Brooks Giving A Seminar At The Aspen Institute  25 Comments

25 Responses

  1. catclub - September 27, 2011 | 11:29 am · Link

    Since it is another type of psychobabble, it is not even OT:
    GoogleFinance Headline: “US Stocks Rise on Optimism Europe Will Make Progress on Crisis”

    I think they have now accepted that Greece WILL default.

  2. catclub - September 27, 2011 | 11:31 am · Link

    “They pick out the one factor that best conforms to their preformed prejudices and, like blind men grabbing a piece of the elephant, they persuade themselves they understand the whole thing.”

    Self-aware much, BoBo?

  3. Elizabelle - September 27, 2011 | 11:32 am · Link

    Thank you Driftglass.

  4. fasteddie9318 - September 27, 2011 | 11:32 am · Link

    I love it when wealthy chatterers call for consumption taxes. Because WE NEED TO SACRIFICE IN THIS COUNTRY, and by “we,” he means, “the rest of you.”

  5. Pliny - September 27, 2011 | 11:33 am · Link

    It’s sort of funny that with all the false-equivalence bullshit on the occasional issue where it is completely false, no one points out/cares that “both sides do it” in the areas where there is no disagreement. Like enthusiastic support of quite literally anything the sociopaths running Israel feel like doing. Or the sociopaths running Wall Street.

  6. Jewish Steel - September 27, 2011 | 11:43 am · Link

    Driftglass is awesome. So’s his podcast w/Bluegal.

  7. Punchy - September 27, 2011 | 11:43 am · Link

    I had no idea what a morbidly obese fat fuck the Jersey gov was. That double first/last name matches his double chin. Lord knows if he ever became president, he’d surely create jobs, as every PapaJonhs in a 5 mile radius of Penn Ave would have double their cook staff.

  8. fasteddie9318 - September 27, 2011 | 11:47 am · Link

    @Punchy: On the plus size side (see what I did there?), if the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man does run, maybe fucksticks like Brooks can fall back in love with the Republicans and once more leave us alone.

  9. MattF - September 27, 2011 | 11:50 am · Link

    Some people are impressed with Brooks, but it’s become clear that he’s a hack. Sociobabble, though, not psychobabble.

  10. frapalinger - September 27, 2011 | 11:52 am · Link

    Driftglass. rules.

  11. JPL - September 27, 2011 | 11:53 am · Link

    @Punchy: The View had a discussion about Christi today. I’m sure it will be up later online. The discussion had to do with whether or not appearance is fair game. Someone said McCain’s age was an issue and someone said Christi’s weight is a health issue and should be discussed. Biden is on the program talking about domestic violence, now.

  12. Downpuppy - September 27, 2011 | 12:01 pm · Link

    I also liked Dean Baker’s take on this Bobosity.

    So how is anything about stimulus disproved because a stimulus that could have been expected to create maybe 3 million jobs was not adequate in a downturn where we needed 10 million jobs? There are no tricks here, this is all arithmetic and it is all right there in black and white.
    But, Brooks does not want to be bothered by arithmetic.

    Numbers have always been kryptonite to Bobo.

  13. Gilles de Rais - September 27, 2011 | 12:01 pm · Link

    Someone said McCain’s age was an issue and someone said Christi’s weight is a health issue and should be discussed.

    So should Bachmann’s mental health issue. As well as whatever it is that’s wrong with Perry (alcoholism, pain meds, early onset Alzheimer’s…any other guesses?)

  14. MattF - September 27, 2011 | 12:10 pm · Link

    @Gilles de Rais:

    Perry is a Texas Republican.

  15. B W Smith - September 27, 2011 | 12:12 pm · Link

    @MattF: I suppose there is no cure for that.

  16. JPL - September 27, 2011 | 12:15 pm · Link

    @Gilles de Rais: Biden was asked about Bachmann and Perry and he responded that the Republican candidates with the exception of Huntsman were the same. As an example he used Perry’s statement on Social Security and he said they all wanted to privatize Social Security. I do love me some Joe!

  17. daveNYC - September 27, 2011 | 12:19 pm · Link

    Krugman chipped in on Brooks. Earlier he went after Friedman’s column.

    Someone needs to tell the wankers at The Atlantic that this is what you’re supposed to do if one of your co-workers has their head up their ass.

  18. B W Smith - September 27, 2011 | 12:24 pm · Link

    @JPL: Thanks for the heads up on Biden’s appearance. The Violence Against Women Act was a great piece of legislation which at some point I am sure the ‘tea party’ party will eviscerate far beyond what the Supreme Court did in 2000. I wrote my thesis on programs for battered women and this act played a major role.

  19. trollhattan - September 27, 2011 | 12:42 pm · Link

    Kevin Drum has a go at Bobo today.

    In the universe we actually do live in, Democrats are willing to talk about the kinds of things on Brooks’s list. Maybe not as bravely or as fully as Brooks would like, but at least they’ll entertain his ideas. But Republicans? They’re dead set against any tax reform that isn’t effectively regressive; they’re dead set against a VAT; they’re dead set against any new revenues for Medicare, which is plainly required as part of any serious reform; they’re dead set against breaking up banks; and they’re dead set against any kind of debt relief. Until conservatives like Brooks manage to get their more rabid compatriots to abandon this antediluvian approach to just about everything, there’s not even a faint hope of getting anything on his wish list done. That’s Job 1. In the meantime, there’s hardly any point in writing about anything else.

    http://motherjones.com/kevin-d.....ikes-again

    Would it be okay to shorten the both-sides-do-it proponents to “Bofers”? I get tired of typing it.

  20. slag - September 27, 2011 | 12:43 pm · Link

    @Downpuppy: Agreed. This summary he provided was also a fairly useful reminder of how we got here:

    President Obama proposed a stimulus package of about $800 billion. He got a package of around $700 billion. (We have to pull out $80 billion for the Alternative Minimum Tax fix. No one, I mean no one, thinks that this fix, which is done every year, had anything to do with stimulus.)

    Furthermore, the package was more heavily tilted toward tax cuts than the package that President Obama proposed. Tax cuts have less impact per dollar than spending. David Brooks could find this fact in the Romer-Bernstein paper as well. The appendix tells us that a tax cut equal to 1 percent of GDP will eventually increase GDP by 0.99 percent. By contrast, government spending equal to 1 percent of GDP will increase GDP by 1.57 percent of GDP.

    I’m going to pull a David Brooks here and point the finger all around. First, the Pres should have pushed Congress (and us) harder and more adroitly, and the reason we know he didn’t is one that he expressed: He didn’t fully appreciate the depth of the recession at the time. Second, Congress. Enough said on that score. Third, wethepeople elected these incompetents to begin with. So, from what I can tell, everyone is at fault for this situation. Everyone except for David Brooks, of course.

  21. norbizness - September 27, 2011 | 12:44 pm · Link

    I steadfastly maintain that I would not be compelled to read David Brooks in the absence of Driftglass’ having done so.

  22. catclub - September 27, 2011 | 1:01 pm · Link

    @Downpuppy: “Numbers have always been kryptonite to Bobo.”

    More like a Procrustean salad bar, well maybe a Procrustean bed of lettuce.

  23. catclub - September 27, 2011 | 1:04 pm · Link

    @trollhattan: “Would it be okay to shorten the both-sides-do-it proponents to “Bofers”? I get tired of typing it.”

    Make you want to bust out the front toofs of the bofers.

    me like.

  24. Comrade Luke - September 27, 2011 | 6:16 pm · Link

    Listening to his podcast now. Is he masking his voice? Sounds weird.

  25. driftglass - September 27, 2011 | 8:57 pm · Link

    Thanks, John!


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