Why does every David Brooks column title sound like either a western or some kind of soft-core porn or both? Rugged Altruists, Vigorous Virtues, etc.
Talk about this or whatever else you want.
Update. Also too, this will leave a mark:
So I had sort of assumed that 1986-type rhetoric about social decay had gone out of fashion. Never mind. Trends since 1986 don’t matter for those who always have a hot tub time machine in their minds.
Whenever I mention hot tubs, have to link to this.
TooManyJens
Like porn, Brooks’ columns are entirely fantasy-based.
cleek
people still read David Brooks?
Hawes
Edmund Burke, his auburn hair falling to his granite jaw, walked in a slow, panther-like pace to where Kathleen Parker was standing. His eyes burned holes into her, and she felt her loins soften and moisten.
“Custom reconciles us to everything.”
Kathleen swooned, as Edmund continued.
“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”
With that, Kathleen flung herself upon the smoldering Irishmen.
There would be no Burkean restraint this time.
Duh rock no balls at all bama
So now we all get to suck ozone also?
Will somebody ask this man to just switch political party’s already?
JGabriel
DougJ:
Ayn Rand tribute.
.
Lev
SNL-era Eddie Murphy! Which, for my money, is the best Eddie Murphy you can get.
As for Brooks, it’s pretty clear he has some severe sexual hangups. Remember his John Thune interview? Man’s just not right–I don’t even buy that he’s a closet case.
cleek
@Duh rock no balls at all bama:
get a grip
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cleek: I was thinking the same thing the other day when someone mentioned Maureen Dowd. The left blogosphere doesn’t even bother to mock her, I can’t remember the last time I heard a ‘centrist’ giggling as s/he quoted one of her zingers.
So Krugman took a shot at Brooks by name? Doesn’t that violate the Times’ code of civility? That Brooks line about “middle class families no longer needing to be thrifty” is a jaw-dropper. I thought they at least knew they had to pretend to be aware of the world beyond NYT “it’s hard to live on only 150K/yr” demographic.
Samara Morgan
did you see the markets today?
down, down, down-down.
JGabriel
@Hawes:
Then David Hume burst in! “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence,” he countered.
“Buzzkill,” Edmund replied, and shot him. Then, at the sight of the 18th C. liberal philosopher’s gushing blood, Kathleen could take no more, and she cried, “Lover, custom-besotted, liberal-shooting lover, I must have you!”
As Kathleen ripped her bodice open in her frenzy of lust, David could be heard whinging in the corner, “I’m still here, you know.”
.
Disco
I think he’s got a firm grip. But not for his skin color, Obama possibly could have defeated Reagan for the nomination in 1980. He certainly would have given Ford a run for his money four years earlier.
Obama is a 1970s Republican who could have easily worked in the Nixon administration and found many friends there.
Don’t kid yourself.
And just wait for next week’s “jobs” speech. Let’s drink every time Obama says “deficit.” We’ll all be fucking blasted three minutes in.
dww44
To all those commenters who yesterday gave us Obama supporters who posited a view similar to the one below such grief in a couple of threads and indeed urged some of us to migrate over to RedState where we apparently belonged, I offer this from the NY Times editorial page:
For all those who harangue on about FDL and the GOS, the Obama purists here are fast making this place no different from those two “professional leftist” sites. Indeed I’d say that GOS is more tolerant of diverse opinions (among commenters) than is the case here of late.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/opinion/oh-grow-up.html?_r=1&hp
If the link doesn’t work, I apologize. I seem not to be good at that here. The piece was titled “Oh, Grow Up” and was on yesterday’s editorial page.
JGabriel
Jim, Foolish Literalist @ 8:
I don’t think so. Krugman has criticized Brooks by name before, and he’s called out Andrew Ross Sorkin for misrepresenting his views.
Ross Douthat, too.
.
dww44
And the reply button at the bottom of my post #12 seems not to be there.
I tried to extend the block quote to cover the next paragraph, but time ran out.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dww44:
I float between there and here, and they only way they are more tolerant is that they don’t take comments down there either. There’s a lot of venom over there, and it’s mostly directed at Obama supporters. The FPers tend to post more anti-Obama articles than support.
Tonybrown74
I think you’ve misunderstood when many of us here have said that much of The Village are looking for a Daddy …
JGabriel
dww44:
(Shakes head in sad resignation.)
Even the liberal New York Times.
.
askew
I really wish one of the many people blaming Obama for the crappy economy would give me a list of things the Obama can do without needing approval from Congress that can significantly improve the economy.
Seriously, is there anything he can do without Congress?
Matt
GIGO is likely the cause here – with a side of squick since Brooks probably faps furiously to BOTH kinds… ;)
dww44
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Valid point. I agree that there are more anti-Obama posts over there, but I see as much venom there from the Pro-Obama folks as from those who are critical. Everytime Cenk posts at GOS he really gets attacked. Someone actually hide rated Kos yesterday for his critical Obama post. Now, that set off a mini-flame war in and of itself.
SiubhanDuinne
@Hawes:
You owe me a new iPad 2.
El Cid
The battle lines are being
drawnfinger-painted in shit:Narrow mindedness is the way the “tea party” Bircherbangelicaltariangregationists formed.
The lack of narrow mindedness would instantly destroy the ‘tea party’ as far as its draw among the saps go.
Chris
@El Cid:
They’ll reconcile by not choosing Romney. Whatshisface in Texas’ chances are looking better by the day.
Cris (without an H)
Harlequin romance
wrb
I thought this was interesting. No doubt the Solyndra bankruptcy will be spun as showing the the government shouldn’t invest in green technologies. Perhaps however the lesson is that it isn’t investing enough to compete. The Chinese want to own this market
SteveinSC
@Disco: Yeah, cleek gets the Exquisite Prig award, again. Jesus, they’re not calling obama the “caveman” for nothing. Obama as perpetual Cave-in is becoming self-parody while the exquisite prigs here are all still watching for the 11-dimensional chess moves. “Get a grip” the captain of the Titanic yelled, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.”
TooManyJens
@askew:
Not a whole lot, according to this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/can-obama-create-jobs-using-his-executive-authority/2011/09/01/gIQAMgq6uJ_blog.html
Dennis SGMM
@Hawes:
I have two 26″ monitors attached to my home built PC. Both of them were beer-tested as a result of your comment. Thank you for a much needed laugh.
wrb
@TooManyJens:
Yea, they thought they could inject some cash by refinancing loans held by Fannie and Freddie at lower rates but F&F’s interim overseer, a Republican, refused, and congress won’t confirm his replacement.
SteveinSC
@TooManyJens: Without Congress? He missed that train before the 2010 elections. Still, he doesn’t need the Congress to cave on everything and he’s tearing-em-out-of-the-rack in that department.
askew
@TooManyJens:
Sigh, that was I was afraid of. So, Obama is going to lose re-election because the GOP killed the economy recovery.
Chris
@askew:
Wonder how they’ll deal with power when they find themselves sitting on a shittastic economy with an entire country screaming for them to fix it.
Dennis SGMM
@wrb:
Solyndra’s bankruptcy was at least in part caused by the fact that they were manufacturing a solar system that was very different in configuration from the standard solar panel. What really hurt them was the fact that the Chinese are over-manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, the key component of solar cells. The glut of polysilicon coupled with competition from low-labor-cost finished solar panels from China has driven the margins for some solar companies to unsustainable lows.
wrb
@Chris:
Unfortunately they will fix it, probably get it booming pronto, but do so in ways that damage a lot we hold dear. And in the publics’ mind their theories will be confirmed.
Disco
@Chris:
How do you think? With tax cuts.
askew
@Chris:
They won’t do anything and the country will continue to spiral down until a Democrat is elected in 2016.
wrb
@Disco:
… for the rich, radical deregulation, tort reform, timber and mineral sales…
TooManyJens
@SteveinSC:
Right, so what you’re saying is that you don’t have any ideas on what he can do to get the economy going, but you’re going to bitch about him anyway because shut up, that’s why. Congratulations, you have found literally the LEAST PRODUCTIVE THING YOU COULD POSSIBLY DO.
Dennis SGMM
@Chris:
Huh? They’ll sell off all of those useless National Parks, all land held by the BLM, and the state of California to some nation’s sovereign wealth fund. Granted that many ranchers will take a hit with the BLM thing but overall it will be worth it to the wingers just to get rid of CA.
wrb
@wrb:
and a really spiffy border fence, weapons systems and perhaps a nice little war.
wrb
@Dennis SGMM:
There will be some money to be made in privatizing agencies too. The FAA, NOAA, NASA, NIH all have tasty assets.
The funds that buy them and the bankers who arrange the deal will be happy too.
Chris
@wrb:
How would they fix it? Their theories don’t work. That’s why the two eras of Republican control since they went all-out Randian (Reagan/Bush and Bush II) both left us with a ruined economy, and their only return to power (Bush II) was when the economy was booming.
Theoretically, they could fix it by looking for non-ideological solutions, but the teabaggers are in a blood frenzy and anyone who does that incurs their automatic primarying.
Nutella
Turkey has expelled the Israeli ambassador and “Turkey’s representation in Israel would be downgraded to the junior level of second secretary” as a result of the attack on the Gaza flotilla. (UN report on it came out today.)
hilts
Best Wingnut Analysis of Obama’s Speech Scheduling Problem
Ronald Kessler hits it out of the park with this one:
“Any 6-year-old knows that you don’t schedule your own birthday party at your house without first checking with your parents… But a White House source told Politico, “With all due respect, the Politico-MSNBC debate was one that was going on a cable station. It was not sacrosanct. We knew they would push it back, and then there would be a GOP debate totally trashing the president. So it wasn’t all an upside for us.”
If that explanation makes no sense, it also encapsulates what makes Obama tick: He is arrogant, he is not very competent or effective, and his operating style is to demonize the opposition… True to form, Obama blamed it all on Congress, just as his self-described mentor and former minister Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s trademark was to blame blacks’ troubles on all whites.”
Source: http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessler/Obama-debate-speech-Boehner/2011/09/02/id/409599
Bruce S
Unlike Wagner, Brooks is actually worse than he sounds…
It drives me nuts when liberal friends have kind words for this drivel-monger. Although, were I Thomas Friedman I would, with good reason, cherish Brooks for adding to my relative stature as the lesser nincompoop.
Chris
@Bruce S:
Many liberals are on a never-ending search for an Arnie Vinick figure to give them hope that the GOP has a rational side that will someday “take back the party” from the psychos now running it. Hence the temptation to compliment any Republican who doesn’t sound like a complete lunatic.
It’s a testament to how far out there the teabaggers have taken them that David Brooks now actually sounds reasonable by comparison.
wrb
@Chris:
Nah, that isn’t true.
Trickle down economics doesn’t work but that is something quite different, than Keynesian solutions to a depression. Trickle-down was about the claim that cutting tax rates for the wealthy would produce so much growth that tax revenues would increase. Which was absurd. But getting out of a depression in which we have an output gap (wealth not being created due to idled capacity) of over $1T/yr is an entirely different issue. From the purely technocratic, apolitical Keynesian sense it doesn’t much matter how you inject liquidity into the real economy, it is that you do it. So put an extra trillion dollars into the hands of those who will spend it through tax cuts (and use this as an excuse to put another trillion into the hands of those who , won’t, the rich) and slash regulations to China-like levels and the economy will pump up plenty fast. Might just find some melamine in our beer, though. Our regulations do cost, we try to find the right balance point. There are plenty of building projects I know personally that have been tied up in the entitlement process for longer that it has taken China to build cities.
So, yea, they can pump up the economy, they will just do it in a way that burdens us with a bunch of negative externalities and directs the money hose toward the richest.
Hugh
I imagine this has been mentioned before. But The Takeaway is the most irritating public radio show there ever was. A close second is Speaking of Faith (Now called On Being) with its relentlessly sincere host who sounds like she interviews all her guests during post-coital cuddle.
Suffern ACE
@Chris:
Well, they won’t. It will be the lousy 80s economy again where everyone knows there’s lots of unemployed but no one will talk about it because the stock market and the strong dollar that’s why.
Bruce S
#46 Chris – what’s problematic with this – although you’re correct – is I don’t think that Arnie Vinick would come across as an even remotely credible Beltway character in a more contemporary fiction. He’d have to be some guy thrown out of office who was making a comeback running as an “independent” to the Kudos of seven guys who write columns for four newspapers.
Dennis SGMM
@wrb:
Not to mention all of the lucrative patents that can be generated from the basic research done by those agencies. “Why hell, we can patent breathing, walking upright, and getting in out of the rain!”
wrb
@Dennis SGMM:
The patents of just NASA and NIH probably already have some fund managers’ legsjumping like a sewing machine.
Chris
@Bruce S:
That’s probably true. I think he sounded plausible in 2005-2006 because that was just when the country was becoming fed up with the Bush bullshit, and the idea that the party might have to become more moderate to distance itself from the absolute clusterfuck the hard right had put us in.
Ah, those fun days…
Bruce S
Wow – I forgot that Arnie Vinick was only five or six years ago. It seems like a decade.
The weirdest thing about the last five years is that David Frum has actually become the most credible right-wing critic of wack-job “conservatism.” Yeah – the loonytoons guy who wrote that humble tome, “The End of Evil” with Richard Perle…
Completely different subject here’s my favorite statistic of the week: 25 of the top 100 CEO’s earned more than their companies paid in taxes…
LT
Someone needs to get a message to John and General Stuck that there’s a whole new opportunity to yell ‘EMOPROG!’ with the awesome and sensible Obama WH ozone ruling.