I drew a pretty negative reaction when I wrote:
I have yet to meet an academic over 50 who doesn’t think that Bobo Brooks is a thoughtful, reasonable conservative with lots of sensible ideas.
When I said “meet”, I meant in everyday life, not at Netroots nation or on the internet, so none of you count as people I’ve met. The fact is that my parents, my parents’ friends, my aunts and uncles on the NPR side of my family, and all of my colleagues like David Brooks and the Snooze Hour and, to some extent, Tom Friedman. It could be that people I know are unusually stupid. In fact, I’ve always suspected that this is the case.
There are those that say there are bigger problems than the fact that so many tote-baggers think that Bobo and Charlie Rose and Tom Friedman aren’t full of shit. I disagree.
The fiction that George W. Bush was a smart, serious leader was toxic to our national well-being. And the fiction that Mike Enzi and Jim Cooper and George Miller are serious health care thinkers continues to be toxic. Assholes like Bobo perpetuate this bullshit and when otherwise intelligent people take these assholes seriously, the bullshit gets perpetuated that much more.
Glenn Beck may be a fraud and a clown, and some of his followers may become domestic terrorists. But he’s not going to get us into a war with Iran or North Korea or Russia. Kaplan, TNR, and the Weekly Standard might, if and when we get another Republican president.
gizmo
I have friends who are fairly bright progressive types who think that Tom Friedman is some kind of oracle.
Oy.
kindness
You don’t know me from Adam & I think Bobo is a twit & that’s being charitable. A Monty Python skit in need of a vehicle.
trollhattan
It’s Bobo’s smoove demeanor that keeps him chugging along as a “respectable” conservative. George Will kept it up for countless decades before the
wheelsbowtie started falling off.Zach
The thing with Friedman is that at least The World Is Flat was pretty accurate and at least somewhat novel. His new idea that the United States will somehow wind up with a net profit if we invent all of the green technology and do all the green manufacturing needed to meet CO2 goals is idiotic, though. In terms of strict self-interest, America’s better off to do absolutely nothing. Pretending that there’s no sacrifice involved in meeting CO2 goals is counterproductive.
SteveinSC
Fixed. Bobo is one of the most insidious neocons, masquerading as a “thoughtful and serious” conservative.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
I type, therefore I am.
DougJ
@trollhattan:
I never felt that George Will was as insidious. He always played up the “crank with the bowtie” angle and talked about how he was only a conservative because rooting for the Cubs had made him bitter.
I don’t love George Will, but I never felt like he was trying to get one over on the audience. He’s pretty WYSIWYG.
SteveinSC
@trollhattan: Long ago Will got on my shitlist when it turned out that creep had help prep Saint Ronnie for the debates, hid the fact and then gave glowing reviews of Saint Ronnie’s performance.
eemom
hey DougJ — there’s this guy named Somerby you might like…..
Phoebe
This does need to be said. And thank you for hating Tom Boring Ass Friedman in particular. And for introducing me to the necessary and useful term “tote-bagger”.
DougJ
@eemom:
I used to love Somerby. I’d like to read him now but it’s mostly awful.
slag
@Zach:
This is silly. Of course there’s going to be a short-term sacrifice. But that’s nothing compared to the long term gain. I suspect that our Defense Department spent a ton of money in development of the internet. As a country, we are much better off for it. The same will be true of green energy. Hilariously, we just need the Defense Department behind the effort.
eemom
Maybe George Will is not as “insidious”, since he doesn’t really bother to seem like anything other than the hard right hack he is…..but he’s equally despicable.
Zach
@DougJ:
I didn’t until he started routinely making arguments that he knows are absolutely wrong on the facts and not even acknowledging requests to correct them. He’s the most influential voice in America fighting action on climate change, which is pretty insidious to me.
scarpy
What’s your gripe with George Miller? Are we talking about the California congressman who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee? He’s kind of an odd bedfellow with Enzi and Cooper.
satby
Well, DougJ, I think the implication was that “people over 50” thought Bobo was a creditable journalist; not just limited to those you’ve personally met. Even though that’s how you stated it.
And hey, I’m 55 and not too wild about the tote-bagger reference.
Evan
I totally agree with you. My dad, now 59, loves the News Hour because it’s a bunch of reasonable men with different points of view hashing things out. I’ve been trying to tell him for years that Brooks is a complete hack, emailing him numerous examples. It’s not necessarily that he’s a conservative hack (which he is) so much as that his status as reasonable never has to be proven. He says ridiculous shit all the time, and instead of getting dismissed as a hack, he gets all the reasonable liberals in the room to nod their heads thoughtfully, not because someone has said something interesting, but because David Fucking Brooks Said Something, And He Is A Reasonable Conservative To Be Listened To.
DougJ
@scarpy:
Paste fail on my part. Sorry.
EDIT: I fixed it.
licensed to kill time
Love the tote-baggers line :)
evap
I agree about Tom Friedman, I just don’t get why intelligent people take him seriously. But I don’t know anybody who thinks Bobo is anything but full of shit.
Still, Doug, you should think about having that beer with some of us in Atlanta. :) We’ve got one of the best beer pubs in the U.S. right here in Atlanta: http://brickstorepub.com/home/
Chuck Butcher
I’m afraid I vote for your alternate theory of your acquaintances. Since I live in a pretty “red” area I have plenty of opportunity to know people who might think BOBO isn’t an ass – not so much. I admit to being puzzled by your experience; maybe it’s a character flaw… ;-)
Zifnab25
Am I the only one who say “Bobality” and tried to think of what kind of Mortal Kombat finisher that would look like?
slag
I suggest that both baggers–tote and tea–are equally culpable. The totes need the teas for contrast so that they can sound serious and high-minded just by comparison. Imagine taking Bobo out into the teabagger-less forest…would he even make a sound? The teas need the totes to get their wacky ideas pushed into the mainstream. Yin and yang.
DougJ
@evap:
I’d love to, next time in Atlanta, which hopefully will be soon (some of my best friends live there or in Athens).
Fergus Wooster
@Zach:
Scanning for snark. . . none found.
Seriously?
Brick Oven Bill
DougJ says:
Glenn Beck may be a fraud and a clown, and some of his followers may become domestic terrorists.
This is a crock DougJ. We have carefully documented violence trends versus political ideology. Consider:
1. “I Am Doctor Amy Bishop” who killed her brother, punched ladies in the head, and recently shot and killed three more. (Harvard Democrat)
2. Architecture Professor who punched out a lady so hard that the cooks could hear his fist strike her jaw in the kitchen. (Columbia Democrat)
3. Professor who screamed mom slurs as he chased a decent Democrat policeman out of his house. (Harvard Democrat)
4. Engineer who crashed a plane into the IRS building. Communist creed in manifesto. Mocked capitalist creed in Manifesto. Chose to live in Austin. Therefore likely Obama voter.
5. Union members who crashed Tea Party and threw conservative black to the ground beating him and repeatedly calling him ‘nig*er’. (racist Democrats)
6. Potential kamikaze attack on Capitol with a drunken green Ford Mustang. (Patrick Kennedy, Democrat) Or perhaps he really was showing up at 2:30am for a vote.
7. Twelve stabbing and bullet victims sent daily to the emergency room by Democrats following the application of Barack’s Harvard training to his Chicago neighborhood.
8. Man bites off cop’s nipple (Democrat).
9. Governor Aide who strips woman, throws her against a mirror, and smashes the phone when she tries to call for help (Democrat).
There is no equivalent on the Tea Party side. Teabaggers operate with Zeal and Reason, not violence.
Zach
@slag: “Of course there’s going to be a short-term sacrifice. But that’s nothing compared to the long term gain.”
I don’t see how clean energy can provide a fundamentally new market in the way that computer networking has. There will obviously be new ways to profit, but they’ll come at the expense of doing away with old ones and slowing down growth, especially in the developing world. It’s also something that the world will figure out how to do eventually when fossil fuels become more expensive than renewable and/or nuclear energy.
I think it’s totally worth any degree of sacrifice to prevent climate change that’ll be irreversible for a thousand years or so; I just think it’s important to ask people to make that sacrifice instead of pretending that all you have to do is buy hybrid cars and turn your lights off for an hour.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@licensed to kill time: WTF is a tote?
DougJ
@Chuck Butcher:
Chuck, you meet a lot of political activist types. They’re not that representative, IMHO. Nearly all of my activist friends hate him.
slag
@Zifnab25: I imagine some sort of shadowy figure administering brain liquefaction rays from a distance.
Brick Oven Bill
I would also add Martin Sheen to that list as Number Ten (Democrat).
Zach
@Fergus Wooster:
I mean within the obnoxious pop policy predictions market. His competition is stuff like The Road Ahead so this isn’t particularly strong praise. If you look at the stuff Friedman talked about it’s more or less come to pass (the extent that it was obviously going to happen is debatable). It’s a better concept than anything in his columns or his book now.
licensed to kill time
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Presumably a device designed to tote things in, like those bags they give you on a cruise ship or your tour of the Bible Lands…
Fergus Wooster
@Zach: But. . . but. . . even the title was a tortured metaphor. . .
Zach
@Brick Oven Bill:
Wow. That tale has grown a lot taller since I first heard it. It was at a health care town hall and not a tea party, no one hit anyone, and no one called anyone any racist epithet. Two idiots started pushing each other and one fell down before the police came over. The end.
Tonal Crow
For evil to thrive, it is only necessary for good to refrain from calling Congress.
Please call today and ask them to PTDB via reconciliation.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@licensed to kill time: These bratty welps have no respect for their elders, or about anything else.. Fuck em, too many toys and cheeseburgers caused this, I reckon. They need some quality time with Uncle Sam to get their minds right.
Brick Oven Bill
I had also forgot to mention the bitten off finger. Ouch. Log this as Number Eleven.
It should be noted that Balloon Juice found a man WHO HAD FIREARMS IN HIS HOUSE and highlighted him. It was noted that he might be a Teabagger. It was good to see a commenter note that he had broken no laws.
Tonal Crow
Is dis da place dat ordered ‘a truckload ‘a Trollberry Cream Pie?
Chuck Butcher
@DougJ: Honestly, I do have a life outside politics…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@DougJ:
You are obviously too young to remeber the role he played in the 1980 election. In which behind the scenes he was one of Reagan’s debate coaches, and then went on TV with his pundit hat on after the debate was over and gave a (as far as the folks at home knew at the time) disinterested analysis stating how well Reagan had done in the debate.
And there was only one debate that year, just weeks before election day. Not enough time to call him on his BS, until after the damage had been done.
ETA: I see SteveinSC beat me to it. Nice to know some other folks have long memories and know how to hold a grudge.
jibeaux
@licensed to kill time:
Or for pledging $100 to your local public radio or TV station, is how I took it. And I took it hilariously!
DougJ
@Chuck Butcher:
Not saying you don’t, just saying that I’ll bet a good proportion of people you’ve talked to about Bobo are political activists. The only people I talk to about certain topics (NYS politics, gay marriage, the health care summit, just to name a few examples) are political activists and I’m not in as deep as you are.
DougJ
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I know about that. He’s an asshole, I just don’t find him an asshole in the exact same way that Bobo is.
licensed to kill time
BOB rivals Beck in assembling random groups of items and drawing connections between them. No wonder he feels an affinity for the rodeo clown.
Put down that chalk slowly and step away from the chalkboard …
Sentient Puddle
By this measure, could we say that David Broder is the most evil man in the world? Because I’d love to have an excuse to call David Broder the most evil man in the world.
aimai
I agree with Gizmo, way upthread, there are a surprisingly large number of people in the world who assume that if they read something on the op ed page of the times its “reasonable” or who remember Friedman primarily as “that guy who has a pulitzer.”
Myself I think that if evil were a teeny, tiny, smiley, pink baby pig–it would be brooks.
aimai
schrodinger's cat
@gizmo: Actually no one I know in real life likes Friedman. Mustache of wisdom is a smug and not that great of a writer either, with his mixed metaphors and cookie-cutter op-ed pieces.
gwangung
Well a a fair amount of people hold it as fact.
pandora
My very liberal mother thinks Joe Scarborough is a fair and balanced conservative… who she admires.
It is my personal shame.
eastriver
@Brick Oven Bill:
Is this all you got, B.O.O.B.?
Oh, you sad little boy-man.
I bet you have lots of cut-out magazine pictures taped on your bedroom walls, don’t you? That’s what you Martha Stewart loving, bug-fuck crazy conspiracists decorate your rooms with, right? And it must be utter hell having to stop Mom from ripping them down every morning, when she visits the basement to make up the sheets on your floor futon.
The amount of reaching you had to do to come up with nine — NO, BREAKING!!!!! ADD MARTIN SHEEN BECAUSE HE PLAYED A DEMOCRAT ON THE TEEVEE AND THAT HAS TO BE A CRIME — sorry, ten examples of dangerous dems is so outlandish as to make my arms ache.
And you left out The Weathermen. That one’s a gimme, you pudding-headed, tea-bagging pillock. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/)
schrodinger's cat
Bobo is dangerous, precisely because he seems so reasonable, when in fact he is anything but.
burnspbesq
@licensed to kill time:
Given away as premiums during public radio and TV pledge drives.
Me, I tell them to keep their premiums. I want all of my contribution going into the operating budget.
eemom
@DougJ:
All non-assholes are alike. Each asshole is an asshole in his own unique way.
Chyron HR
@Brick Oven Bill:
Dear BOB,
We sincerely appreciate that you are still attempting to effect political change through the “soap box”, however the rest of the Teabag Party has moved on to the “cartridge box“. We can only hope their box is as metaphorical as yours.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@DougJ:
Understood.
But in my book Will has done more damage over the length of his career than Bobo has. Because Will was present at the creation – of a viciously dishonest right wing media that was able to hide under the cover of pretending to be your father’s old “liberal media” and thus they flew under the radar of most people in a way the old Goldwater era right wing screamers were not able to get away with. They earned their way to the top during the 1980s, and set the template for the media we have today.
Bobo has made his career doing little more than harvesting the crop that Will sowed.
licensed to kill time
@jibeaux:
@burnspbesq:
I was going to add the public tv/radio totes but the other two were funnier so I went with the cheap snicker, my bad ;-)
SarahLoving
i think the truth is that bobo and tom friedman are so successful and liked because they actually believe the bullshit they spew.
it may not have started out that way, but somewhere along the line, their intellectual curiosity turned into oatmeal. they’re not trying to pull one over on anybody – they’re true believers now, their untroubled consciences depend on it!
a lot of people like oatmeal. it’s cold outside. both the writer and reader want to believe that as long as we keep talking soberly, we’re in control. we know what’s going on, we know what the Truth is. Which renders worrying about stuff unnecessary.
DougJ
@eemom:
I’ve always loved that quote.
I wish I were the sort of person who read enough Tolstoy and Nabokov to know its full history.
eastriver
@SarahLoving:
I disagree. They don’t believe. They want to believe. Big diff.
Bobo and Chunky Bobo both come out of the Safire tradition. Each and every cold column of consonance and calumny, Safire would spin a web of genial, shucks and-something-else-that-begins-with-SH crap, inside of which would be nested one tiny, subversive nugget or conservative horseshit.
Bobo is pretty much the same, but slightly more clever. Skip to the last two grafs of any Bobo piece and you’ll see what he’s really talking about. Like when someone says, “Oh, by the way…” it’s a sure sign that what they’re about to say is the entire reason they’re currently talking to you.
Morbo
Sigh… yeah, my aunt the lawyer, too… My dad though is 62 and thinks Brooks is despicable.
t jasper parnell
The logic here is remarkable. All the people you know fit into a category of over 50 Bobophiles therefore all people in the category of over 50 academics are Bobophiles. Next stop WaPo
maus
Bullshit. Anyone who incites fear and hatred of Iran and North Korea gets these ideas stuck in the heads of conservatives, and pushes them to elect the politicians who follow TNR, the Weekly Standard, etc. The only difference between Beck and the rest of the conservative rags is in basic literacy level.
Danton
Friedman’s a dick. Bobo styles himself a “public intellectual.” Charlie Rose makes me vomit. I also think Beck has snot for brains.
I am an academic. I am over 50.
I do not identify with boomers.
Paris
none of you count as people I’ve met
but we count as people, right? or are the intertubes like the matrix?
Garrigus Carraig
@t jasper parnell:
Reading comprehension fail.
(Emphasis mine).
cat48
Meh. I only like them when they are “buckdancing” for Obama, to quote Rev. Al.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“totebaggers”. I love it. And I totally get what you’re saying. As a recovering academic with my large extended family pretty much split between tote-baggers of varying degrees of liberalism and single-issue voters (Irish Catholic), I have been shocked at what some of the tote-baggers consider sound analysis, good reporting/punditry
The Raven
Charlie Rose is good outside of politics. Inside politics, it’s too dark to read.
CS LewisJr
The Friedman thing is inexplicable. He’s Jonah Goldberg with a work ethic.
Kenneth Fair
DougJ:
This is why I’ve long thought the American Enterprise Institute was one of the most dangerous organizations in the country. The place is full of whackos and extremists (with the sole exception of Norm Ornstein) whose ideas are taken seriously in Washington.
Jules
Jesus, I’m listening to Brooks on NPR right now.
I wish I could reach though the radio and punch him in the neck.
Tax Analyst
@gizmo:
And the worst part of it is that Friedman is just cribbing comments from Iraqi cab-drivers.
Why don’t you suggest to your progressive-type friends that they just go ask one of those?
Cheryl from Maryland
George Will is disgusting. So many have forgotten during the 80’s he was railing against women’s equal rights, but not for his daughter, who of course was so perfect and smart that none of his rules applied to her. Douche and creep. Brooks is cut from the same cloth. He pontificates for thee, but not for him, because he is exceptional.