David Brooks, as all right-thinking people know, is the “nice” conservative — willing to concede the occasional point to liberals, non-threatening enough to appear in The New York Times and on NPR. These same right-thinking people believe that Rush Limbaugh is a nasty, snarling extremist zealot and a menace to society (or perhaps they believe he merely plays a nasty extremist on the radio).
So quick question: Which one, in the past 24 hours, said that President Obama “is trying to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream,” and which one said Obama is “attack[ing] modern capitalism as it now exists” and “challeng[ing] the entire logic of capitalism as it has existed over several decades,” “part of a comprehensive attack on the economic system”?
Can’t tell? Well, Limbaugh said the former and Brooks wrote the latter.
Wonkette nailed this shit about Burkean order preservation the other day:
To be fair, if I churned out this kind of drivel a few times a week and had a four million dollar house to show for it, I’d probably want to keep the existing social order as well.
Update. Speaking of money, you know the drill, we’re nine-hundred eighty thou short of a mill. Give it up for the anti-capitalist Kenyan radical.
schrodinger's cat
He is worse than Limbaugh because people who are not into politics (totebaggers, for example) think he is wonderful and believe what he says.
BGinCHI
CREAM, indeed.
Bitches.
TenguPhule
Considering the whole scheme of naked capitalism boils down to “shit where you eat as long as it makes an extra nickel”, I would hope so.
Haydnseek
This is why the rich have never been richer, Wall St. has never been stronger, and corporations have never been more profitable. Obama HAS to be a capitalist, because he sure sucks at socialism.
BGinCHI
Capitalism cannot exist without government regulation.
Feel free to refute.
It’s what the crony, democracy and capitalism-hating Republicans can’t bear to admit or are too stupid to know.
pragmatism
Pierce (as always) does an excellent job detailing the “courtier press” using bobo and halperin as examples.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/david-brooks-joe-klein-romney-10753130
jl
thanks for posting. I was going to link that grate Wonkette analysis, but D’anti-BrooksJ beat me too it.
Yutsano
@BGinCHI: Adam Smith wrote a whole book about that. Of course Republicans cherry pick out the good parts.
Maude
Obama is upsetting the apple cart.
Turgidson
I dispute this notion. He’s willing to admit it when the Republicans do something really, really, really, dumbfoundingly crazy. And he’ll agree with liberals that Sarah Palin is a moron.
But he almost never substantively concedes points to liberals. Even when it’s obvious to anyone with a pulse he’s spewing bullshit to avoid doing so.
schrodinger's cat
What happened to the website, I was getting a weird error message. Refusing a database connection..
russell
Seriously, Obama is doing all of that?
He’s got my vote.
El Cid
OMG! Obama is the perfect Trotskyist revolutionary!
If only the Bolsheviks had aimed to save the emergent capitalist elements of their Russian economy instead of overthrowing it, they would have achieved the Obamaite perfect transition to soshullism in only 3.5 years!
Just like Comrade Obama!
El Cid
@Maude: Upsetting the Applebee’s salad dressing cart?
Scamp Dog
I actually managed to guess correctly, based on the longer phraseology in the Brooks quote: it seemed more like writing than speech. Still, there are similarities that I really wouldn’t have believed without seeing them together. The more I think about it, though, the less surprised I get.
AA+ Bonds
David Brooks reads Balloon Juice
Jebediah
@AA+ Bonds:
So he’ll see me saying if I ever meet him I might not be able to stop myself punching him in the fucking neck?