I love this stuff, but I wonder about this guy’s countertops:
At a Natural Resources Committee hearing Friday on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) mistakenly addressed the professor as “Dr. Rice” while calling his testimony “garbage.”
Brinkley interrupted, saying: “It’s Dr. Brinkley, Rice is a university,” and “I know you went to Yuba [Community College in California] and couldn’t graduate —”
Then it was Young’s turn to interrupt. “I’ll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that chair,” he told the witness. “You just be quiet.”
Brinkley countered: “You don’t own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer.”
The Fat Kate Middleton
You have to see this to believe how petulant and offensive this congressman can be. And how great “Mr. Rice” is.
suzanne
So awesome.
rob!
Doug Brinkley got to interview Bob Dylan (for RS) AND he has the cojones to tell some Republican thumbhead to STFU? I think I have a new man-crush.
Villago Delenda Est
Good for Dr. Rice…er, Brinkley!
These Rethuglican assholes need to be bitch slapped a lot.
Katie
Ugh. Don Young has been like that forever. He’s a buffoon and delights in saying things that will piss people off–just to piss them off. I sat next to him on a plane not too long ago and he was cackling about making lots of people mad at a meeting he was just at. It’s hard to imagine that my state has re-elected him so many times. I make a point of voting for whoever is running against him, regardless of whether I think they’d be good or not.
Unfortunately, the democrats almost never even mount a viable candidate to run against Don Young. The people they put up are as big a joke as Don is which is a bad deal.
soonergrunt
The only thing that would’ve made that better is if he ended the “you work for the taxpayers” thing with “you arrogant prick.”
chicodude
According to Young’s office, the congressman earned an associate degree from Yuba Junior College in 1952 and a bachelor’s degree in teaching at Chico State College in 1958 after a stint in the U.S. Army.
Ugh. As a Chico citizen, allow me to apologize for this jackass.
JGabriel
@soonergrunt:
I was thinking “two-bit crook asshole on the take from oil companies”, but the sentiment’s the same.
.
Hobelhouse
That’s my professor! Had him for History of the Cold War a few years back. Kickass.
Warren Terra
I love him standing up for himself, and I admire his Kerry book (the only one of his I’ve read, I think) – but I wish he hadn’t sneered at Young getting an education the hard way, through community college and a minor state college, especially as (assuming Young’s bio is true) he is wrong to say Young dropped out – doubly wrong, as Young’s education was interrupted by Army service. I can’t think of many things to like about Young, but that he struggled to get an education and helped to defend his country would count.
No one of importance
Maybe I’m misreading this but they both come off as snotty jerks. Nothing laudable about either of ’em.
Maude
@Warren Terra:
He also got down to Young’s level instead of staying out of the it. It would have been better to just keep quiet.
Brandon
How do liberals keep missing the point. It is not necessary to defend Doug Brinkley to enjoy the spectacle of Don Young getting put in his place. The ‘put down’ here was not the reference to education, it was throwing Republican talking points back in his face about the private sector vis-a-vis government and how hard Republicans, and Don Young in particular are working to prove Reagan’s maxim regarding government as ‘the problem’ and Hayek’s slippery slope thesis of government as a truism or self fulfilling prophecy. Whether or not Brinkley came across as ‘snotty’ or denigrating Young’s working class education or service to the country is beside the point. It all just goes to show how indroctrinated the ‘liberal defensive crouch’ is that people have this notion that all critiques must be pure and come from sources that are equally pure and unimpeachable. But then again, who am I to cast aspersions on liberals generally or unspecified commentators on this blog post?
Tyro
How do liberals keep missing the point.
Because for many people, being a liberal is a temperament, a lifestyle, a cultural statement, not an ideology and/or “side” they are determined to defend. They’d mich prefer to get beaten on by republicans while reassuring themselves that they’re “the reasonable one” rather than stand up for themselves, which they consider to be “acting republican.”
nevsky42
Shorter Brinkley, “know your role and shut your mouth.”
gil mann
Doug, did you just misquote Glengarry Glen Ross? Who ever told you that you could blog with men? EDIT: oh, okay, that’s a Shelley line, I figured you were going for “Fuck you, that’s my name.”
Brandon might have the right read on this, but it sure would be nice if the progressive hero du jour’s words could just stand on their own instead of needing to be parsed and explained after the fact. Because it really does come off as plain ol’ higher-ed snobbery, which I didn’t think was still a thing but innumerable Penn State threads (not so much here, to this place’s credit) have shown me otherwise.
Pretty sure there’s a middle ground between absorbing hammer-blows and being an elitist dick, but hey, I dropped out of college, fuck I know?
Jennifer
Another good response, one that I myself would have been tempted to make: “I’m not your bitch, BITCH.”
Marc
And, yet again, there is nothing that the purists can’t second guess. Who needs enemies when your “friends” are invested in “both sides are the same” crap?
The tell is the *last* sentence, where the congressman tells a citizen that he can call them whatever he wants to. The barbs (deliberately mis-stating the professor’s name, which annoyed him enough for a dig) are the sideshow.
Kathy in St. Louis
Douglas Brinkley is a very well-known author and historian. He wrote a lot about New Orleans during the catastrophe that happened there and the government’s handling of it. The other guy sounds like he’s been watching old films from the McCarthy hearings of the 50s. This is how government officials spoke to witnesses. Personally, I totally agree with Brinkley. These guys DO work for us, and deserve all the respect that they show us.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Both of them come off as assholes.
Neither one should be defended, unless you’re the type to tell the clerks at the DMV that you pay their salary and they work for you.
Gilles de Rais
Well, Tyro’s response is the only reasonable one in the thread, the rest of you would probably have turned Jews over to the Gestapo, as that was “taking the high road” and “working within the system”. Plus, those Jews were so uncouth, with their shrill insistence on staying alive.
markg
Someone shows the balls to fight back against a wingnut bully who just insulted him to his face, and gets criticized by supposedly liberal commenters for being too mean. I just want to give up.
Jay in Oregon
@Gilles de Rais:
Exactly right! Because not wanting to sink to the level of a schmuck like Young and behave like a petulant child, elitist snob, or flat-out asshole (but I repeat myself) is exactly like turning Jews in to be murdered by the Gestapo.
Why don’t you do us all a favor and jump up your own ass. I’m sure you can find it, since you must have dug that nugget of wisdom out of there.
Mike G
This parsing of Brinkley’s ‘assholishness’ or ‘elitism’ on this thread is unbelieveable. He’s not humiliating some undergrad in a lecture hall, he’s taking on a powerful bully and thug of long-standing.
Sometimes you have to strike back at bullies, and you don’t do it with witty drawing-room debate and reasonableness. Bullies rely on their victims’ politeness and restraint.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
Hey, chicodude ~ as a fellow Chico resident, I add my voice to your apology for our city’s distant connection to this pompous turd.
Feudalism Now!
Enough with civility. Fuck Don Young. Fuck rising above it. There is no civility with the current Fascists. Dr. Brinkley should have said, “You’re a civil servant. Get me a glass of water.” I am tired of being the only adult in the room and taking shit for it. They want to fight in the mud, I will become a pig. Good for Dr. Brinkley for throwing the thugs talking points back at him, the bloated tick on the taxpayer he is.
Ruckus
@markg:
This.
Don Young is an asshole. He doesn’t even try not to be one. He likes being an asshole. And everyone is supposed to bend over for him? He is supposed to work for us, just like that person at the DMV, we do pay their wages. I don’t expect them to kiss my ass, I expect them to do their job. I don’t get to be a snotty ass at my job, do you?
ETA And by the way, at my local DMV the people are nice, professional and know their jobs. It’s a pleasure to go there. It didn’t used to be that way but it is now.
Brandon
@Mike G: Exactly, the whole “sinking to his level” garbage is only relevant if where the power relationship is equal or where Brinkley is in a position of power over Young. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. Young has the position of power over Brinkley and tried to enforce it and Brinkley point in fact pointed out that he was not going to respect Young’s authoritah. The act of actually ‘speaking truth to power’, as we have seen in the Arab spring, summer and fall, is not in fact a polite process and never has been.
Joseph Welch famously and repeated ‘broke the decorum of the Senate’ through: cutting off Senator McCarthy on at least 3 occassions; repeatedly committing the horror of calling the Senator names, including ‘cruel’; and also and quite famously challenged the Senator’s ‘decency’. He then proceded to tell the Senator to call another witness because he was done talking to him.
I think if that happened today, any number of posters on this blog would get the vapors. I don’t want Brinkely to be a “progressive hero” and don’t need him to be. It is only if you believe in true argumentum ad hominem that anything else other than relishing Don Young getting put in his place would be relevant. And that is the true essence of the ‘liberal defensive crouch’.
Brutusettu
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/don-young-gulf-oil-spill-environmental-disaster_n_599392.html
Ruckus
The government is made up of people, people just like everyone else. The difference is we are their employers. We don’t get to tell each one of them how to do the specific task they get hired for, but we should expect a minimum amount of competence and civility. They do work for us. They help make our country what it is, the good and the bad. A lot of that good and bad is a direct result of their work.
We should be able to demand they do better.
When I’ve had people working for me, both in government and out, I have asked for competence and civility in their jobs. They have asked the same of me and had the right to expect it. That’s how we have a civilized society. We don’t act like the cop in Davis, we don’t act like Don Young. These people are assholes and bullies, they should be treated like that.
Brinkely did that. Good for him.
Yutsano
@Ruckus:
I never forget that, every single day, in my job, the people I talk to are the people I work for. Which is why I will try as hard as I can to make their situation better. And if for some reason I can’t right then it becomes my mission to set them on an action plan to make their situation better. I’m only one agent in a huge bureaucracy. But if I can make a difference for that one person at that one moment (and I have) then I will. Don Young seems to have forgotten he actually makes differences for ALL Americans, not just his rich oil buddies.
Triassic Sands
It’s getting harder and harder to be civil with the thugs and lunatics.
Kathy in St. Louis
Just wondering how many of the folks who are criticizing Dr. Brinkley for his comments are the same people who think that Obama should just tell the Repugs where to head in. As I stated earlier, civil servants deserve the same degree of civility and respect that they dish out.
I once believed in the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
With these guys it should be, “Do unto others as you see them doing unto others.”