If you read today’s New York Times opinion page, you’ll never have to read another Moustache or MoDo column ever again, because the Grey Lady has published the immutable, eternal archetype of each of their standard emissions:
That is why I want my own Tea Party. I want a Tea Party of the radical center.
Dowd, in a column headlined Hail the Conquering Professor:
The Democrats were walking around in a state of shock.
Holy cow, they were saying to themselves. We’re not total wimps!
Did Pinch or Punch or Biff or whatever inbreed runs that place outsource the opinion page to the Onion while we weren’t looking?
AB
Holy crap haaahahahhahahah I spit out what I was drinking and laughed on the floor for five minutes after I read “Tea Party of the Radical Center”. hahahahhaa
Quaker in a Basement
Did Pinch or Punch or Biff or whatever inbreed runs that place outsource the opinion page to the Onion while we weren’t looking?
No. The Onion actually makes sense.
SiubhanDuinne
LOL, I had just finished reading these on the NYT site before heading over here, and had the almost identical thought. These two columns are close to the Platonic Ideal of MoDo and MoU, the distilled essence of glib vapidity (glibidity?).
Mike E
These might be the End Times of rational thought, I definitely picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
Teh Editors are back–‘Waterloo Sunset’ had me weeping. Great antidote to whatever weak tea the MSM is pushing. Cottage industrial assholes.
Craig Pennington
A compulsive centrist kōan: What is a Teabagging without nuts?
Comrade Javamanphil
Nothing gets me quite as hard as compromise. Bring on the party of centrists!
In all seriousness, though, do these morons of moderate missives realize that by trying to always be in the center you are at the whim of whatever the radical fringes are doing? In fact, it means you have no principles at all?
(I know, I know. No. SATSQ.)
TR
Those columns remind me of the Simpsons episode where the radio station’s morning zoo crew, Bill and Marty, are going to be replaced with a computerized DJ.
Bulworth
I suppose I’ll read these shitty opeds on the train this morning, but good god Balloon Juice has had some damn funny threads to start my morning. That bit about Caribou Barbie had me LMAO. And the GOP AG’s. Passing HCR is a gift that’s gonna keep on giving.
MTiffany
Why? Did the quality of the Times’ opinion page suddenly rise?
beltane
The NYT op-ed page has long been a Tea Party of the radical center, i.e. wankers; what is Friedman bitching about here.
SIA
WTF NYT headline in my inbox this am:In Health Care Bill, Obama Attacks Wealth Inequality.
Oh for fucks sake.
arguingwithsignposts
Latest Smudge to quell the violence.
bob h
That “hopey-changey stuff” seems to be working out rather well, all of a sudden.
Mustang Bobby
A “tea party of the center”? So Mr. Friedman envisions marchers carrying signs of Obama as Eisenhower (and correctly spelling his name)?
Frankly
American Dad wrote an amazing open letter to conservatives.
I just wish, the MSM would be up to this level of reporting. It’s the opposite of the Dowd Column completely. Talking Points Memo keeps getting better and better.
Ty Lookwell
Why bother clicking on Dowd or Friedman? They’re sad, one-note jokes.
OTOH, Bob Herbert has really been writing some excellent columns lately; yesterday’s was particularly good. It made me wonder if more people are starting to notice and read him, compared with a couple of years back when the Washington Monthly even wrote an article entitled “Why Is Bob Herbert Boring?” and Drum was wondering why he was so widely ignored.
I wonder when Carlos Slim gets to start picking his new columnists.
cleek
What Do We Want?
Not Too Much!
When Do We Want It?
When The Time Is Right!
How We Gonna Get It?
Compromise!
Say It Again!
Compromise!
One More Time!
Let’s Not Over-do It!
Bill E Pilgrim
I swear I had exactly the same thought reading those two columns earlier this morning (while all of you Stateside slept).
They could have been written by Mustache and Mo Bots, having been fed all of their columns, now able to faithfully churn out an epitome of each at the press of a button.
Once again, Friedman includes at least a minor offering of his metaphor mangling (I’d say alert Matt Taibbi, but I think he’s exhausted from years of TF ridicule duty, so I’ll just do it myself instead) with the title. Who the hell has nuts at a tea party? Scones, milk, crumpets, there are any number of items traditionally included in a tea party that would have worked, but “A tea party without the nuts” is like saying “A tailgate party without the crumpets”.
He also seems to think that both the Democratic and Republican parties have been taken over by extremists, but that’s something any number of Villagers could have written. It’s the language crimes that make his take unique.
Joe
so we’re stuck with another DougJ-style commenter who thinks they’re cute writing completely in obscure names/references, obscuring their actual point? Fantastic.
/does anyone have a firefox extension to block any non-John Cole postings??
SiubhanDuinne
@arguingwithsignposts #12:
That Smudge just gets sweeter-looking every day. What a beauty!
@Cleek #17:
Brilliant!
Bill E Pilgrim
@Joe: Huh?
Was “Dowd” or “Friedman” too cryptic for you? Especially since those included links which took you to the articles where you could even read their bio if you wanted.
Bill E Pilgrim
@cleek: What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or just born with a heart full of neutrality?
Linda Featheringill
Good morning. Nice to see all those happy faces. :)
From The Editors [Waterloo Sunset], as recommended by Mike E:
Just about had a nervous breakdown over this last week. Jeez! It was not easy watching all of this. But how could we not?
Have a nice day, folks. I have LOTS to get done today.
SiubhanDuinne
@Joe #19: WTF are you going on about? There isn’t one obscure reference in mistermix’s post to anyone who’s spent more than about 10 minutes over here (if you’re talking about the MoDo or Moustache references) or much time at all on Planet Earth (the term “Grey Lady” for the NY Times is more than a century old, and if you don’t know The Onion, you’re just a sad, sad person). Oh, wait. Maybe you never came across the word “immutable.” Or “archetype.”
ricky
When will the Times modernize and begin promiting inbreds whose parents were sufficiently trendy to provide their offspring with last names for first names?
SRW1
@cleek:
The TPRC program in ten lines!
Now that’s radically awesome.
Robin G
Dammit, why can’t I have a job at the NYT? I can make up bizarre, senseless wishy-washy ideology based on a non-existent archetype of Real America, too!
georgia pig
@SiubhanDuinne: A good generic term, but we need a finer taxonomy to differentiate the Modo, Freidman, Brooks and Douthat strains. The genus would be glibiditus. BTW, the NYT should be more careful in publishing MoDo and Friedman concurrently, that much glibidity at one point in space and time almost created a singularity that could have swallowed the universe, like the hadron supercollider thingy.
DougJ
As bad as that MoDo column was, it should not be mentioned in the same breath with the Friedman column. The Friedman column is the single worst column I have ever read.
scav
@SiubhanDuinne: shhh, don’t tell him. Some of us aren’t posting under our own names either.
JenJen
I’m kind of disappointed you left out the best quote in the entire Dowd piece, and it comes early:
The whole piece is weird. She goes through the entire tick-tock from Saturday through Monday. I realize her column is a Wednesday thing, but seriously, MoDo. We know all that stuff you wrote about, already. Many of your readers have televisions, and internet access. Get over yourself (yes, I know, a tall order).
ETA: Was about to read Moustache’s column, but not after what DougJ just wrote, above. I’ll wait till I’m +5 or something.
ricky
@TR:
They remind me more of the Southpark episode with the appearance of the prophet on FOX. These columns were written by the manatees.
jayackroyd
@DougJ
The Moustache column is really breathtaking in the depths of its narcissistic cluelessness.
Persia
@scav: My name is totes Persia. Yep. Persia Jones, that’s me.
celticdragonchick
I read Maureen’s column and saw nothing to disagree with.
I’d like to slap congressman Boehner myself, come to think of it.
Brian J
I guess the fact that the health care plan was built in large part on conservative ideas wasn’t enough for Friedman.
ericblair
Anytime one of our betters starts wanking about Centrism, you can simply translate that as “I don’t give a shit what the rabble does or what happens to them, as long as I get to keep my six-figure cushy job and my dinner invitations.” It’s an absolute lack of interest in actual policy as long as it doesn’t upset the establishment applecart and, in particular, them in the process.
The sad part about the Onion is that it not only makes sense, it’s simply the real news six months in the future. They’re not comedians: they have a time machine, people.
celticdragonchick
Just glanced through Friedman’s column. I agree with his assessment on how the political system is broken, but then he steers into magic-pony-that-shits-rainbows land.
Wow.
Robert Waldmann
Golly gee this looks like a problem for the Onion. You to. And the corpse of irony.
Sorry fella but I betcha that you just can’t outdo reality. Or match it.
David in NY
My wife keeps thinking that MoDo is funny. I keep reminding my wife that the lady’s schtick is basically misogynistic — comparing Democrats to girly-men (a point I expect her to grasp, since she has always thought that the prejudice against homosexuals was just another version of anti-woman prejudice).
tomvox1
Two twits struggling for relevance in the post-Bush/Clinton age, when the standards for “thoughtful” discussion and “meaningful” critiques were so much lower.
tomvox1
And really: again with the “Radical Center” bullshit? What year is it again?
David in NY
@georgia pig:
Okay, let me give it a whirl, see if you can connect the following species with their individual members:
Glibiditus selfreferentalis
Glibiditus sophmoricus, var. queerbashicus
Can’t do the others, back to you.
Bulworth
@DougJ: I thought so, too, until I tried reading Kathleen Parker’s opeder in Fred Hiatt’s Crayon Scribble Page. Truly awful. If I didn’t know any better, I might come away from it thinking they just passed a mandatory universal abortion bill. Nothing about the fact that the Hyde Amendment stays in place, how the Senate Bill restricts funding for abortion. Nothing.
Waynski
With Repubs running the show in Congress from 1994-2006 and Bush in the White House for eight years, they’ve been teabagging the Repubs for a total of 14 years. They don’t have Dem sources or contacts so they go the lazy route and rely on the same old sources, the same old talking points, and rehash the same old bullshit they spouted about centrism since the Clinton days. I’m just glad the NY Observer comes out on Wednesday and I can spend my lunchtime reading Joe Conason as opposed to these wankers.
ds
@tomvox1:
Yeah I thought the idea behind this “radical center” nonsense was that if the hippies on the left stopped pushing for crazy ideas like expanding health care coverage, we can all come together for important ideas like tax credits for invading Middle Eastern countries. Conservatives would even agree to stop blowing up abortion clinics.
Radical.
asiangrrlMN
Wait a minute. Who was the other person talking about the militant middle? Ah, yes. The crazed Hillary supporter with the ridiculously pretentious name. Forester de Rothschild, I believe. Does anyone else remember that? So. The centrists can proudly claim Friedman and de Rothschild. Good for them.
As for Dowd, I cannot stand the way she writes, no matter what the subject.
@Ty Lookwell: I read Herbert, Kristof, and Krugman at the NYT. That’s it.
@arguingwithsignposts: Man, she’s growing up so quickly. Lady Smudge is gorgeous.
conumbdrum
Hear hear. This whole concept was satirized by cartoonist Jules Feiffer, back in the early Sixties, in his series of Village Voice strips on “The Radical Middle,” where he kicked the shit out of smug, don’t-rock-my-boat fence-straddlers like Friedman… the same kind of schmucks who sort of favored civil rights, for example, but didn’t want to be excessively hasty about it:
“I thought middle-ism was a great danger because the voice of the middle — or Radical Middle, as I called it — was in its guise of reasonableness exacerbating our problems while pretending to address them. If you look back, the responsible moderate position on Martin Luther King Jr. was that he was a dangerous radical, alienating supposed allies, establishment blacks, and white liberals.”
(Someone ought to write a parody of a sixties Friedman, making this very point. Comedy gold!)