Daivd Brooks sure closes ranks fast, doesn’t he? Now that Obama is the nominee, gone are the somewhat interesting columns, and now we can expect a steady drumbeat of anti-Obama BS. Today we get a healthy preview of the coming class warfare as seen by Brooks.
It is how the hive mind works.
*** Update ****
Jesse Taylor notices something.
A commenter here points out the code.
dslak
So, because government by corporate stooges is bad, we should vote Republican? Methinks Kristol may have challenged Brooks to a duel over who could show himself to have the least amount of shame.
jake
Shorter David Brooks: Obama is kicking McCain’s ass when it comes to fund raising. Therefore Obama is EVILE!
Yeah! Like that time the highly educated coastal rich ran around screaming that the inland corporate rich were as bad as terrorists, wanted to burn our Bibles, force our children into gay marriages and made God so angry He flooded New Orleans!
This is a bad thing? Really? Does he think this is a bad thing?
HOLY SHIT! You mean this country won’t be run by Bible zombies. We’re doooomed!
Yeah. Wow. Unfortunately Brookie has no idea how that happened. I mean, someone at the White House must have left the door open and G-S snuck in when no one was looking.
Jesus Christ on a moped. What a douche.
dslak
Yeah, I know Brooks isn’t so naive as to think that people don’t vote for politicians with whom they identify. That’s a big hint that his whole column is an exercise in disengenuousness.
donnah
Over the weekend my husband and I attended one of the Obama Houseparties. My friend’s nineteen-year-old son is a campaigner for Obama and he organized and hosted it. He invited fifteen people; twenty-six showed up.
None of us are corporate bigwigs. None of us have large disposable incomes. The Obama campaign we saw is based on registering voters, talking to people about Obama, answering questions and concerns, and encouraging people to vote.
Brooks can quote all the stats he wants to. But Obama’s support will come from people like us, who go to events like this one, listen, and come away with motivation to “do something”. We aren’t starry-eyed goofballs. Every person at the houseparty was sincerely concerned about the state of the country and we all feel that electing Obama is a big step in the right direction.
Little donations do add up.
TheFountainHead
I won’t even wipe my ass with his words any more, too much risk of a rash.
Wilfred
Pat Lang got Brooks perfectly:
Read whatever he writes with that in mind.
Bernie
It never ceases to amaze how ivory towered hacks like Brooks, Kristol, and Krauthamer have such fear and contempt for people who are actually knowledgable about how government agencies function and real world economics. They seem to believe government should be run by goobers who act “manly” (something none of them are) and spout a bunch of tough sounding bullshit instead of by people who are competent.
Punchy
Please tell me he meant this as a good thing, not a bad one. If not, is he implying it’s better to run a country using uneducated, illiterate fucks?
The mind reels at such abject stoopididy.
Punchy
A little OT, but for the lawyers:
Does this make sense? Is a U.S. airport really not on U.S. property?
Adjusting the tin-foil hat, does this really give all legal cover for agents to jack foreigners at leisure, as long as they’re in an airport? The implications are astounding.
Dreggas
I know International Airports tend to be duty free but last I knew the ones on U.S. property were considered part of the U.S.
Wilfred
No, he’s stating it’s necessary to elect a government with the votes of uneducated, illiterate fucks. Brooks, Krauthammer, Kristol, et al. are the public apologists for the imperial faction that runs both parties. They’re latter day Kiplings, in a way.
dslak
Minus the introspection and ambiguity, of course.
Otto Man
Given BoBo’s Seinfeld sociology approach to politics, I look forward to endless variations on “black candidates drive a car like this, but white candidates drive a car like this!”
He’s right! We’re so lame!
Gregory
Another is “by David Brooks”.
Zifnab
White Man’s Burden! White Man’s Burden!
I CAN HAZ IT BACK?
nightjar
ZOMG, those wealthy traitors to the wingnut cause. The $201 dollar BIG money country clubber elitists have been co-opted by the smooth talking brother from the hood.
“Information age analysts” wonder if that includes Cheeto crunching bloggers.
Brooks = MegaPutz
AkaDad
FTA
On this, Brooks is correct.
ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, and FOX, constantly give McCain favorable coverage.
dslak
What about churchgoing university professors? Managers in media corporations? I seriously could give two shits where people get their values from; I want to know what those values are, and if they’re commensurate with the public good.
RSA
“Could”? Does anyone know how this might work? I flat-out don’t believe it. That is, it sounds less believable than something like, “If McCain’s tax plans go through, the country could be bankrupt in a generation.”
greynoldsct00
I’d be curious to know McCain’s percentage of small donors (which I’m sure is much less than Obama’s), funny how he doens’t offer that statistic. Probably because McCain’s a corporate whore like the rest of them.
DannyNoonan
but only about 45 percent of his money comes from donations of $200 or less.
Um, that’s a record percentage, asshole.
Perry Como
While Brooks is an asshat, he is right. Goldman Sachs is one of the few Wall Street firms that didn’t completely fuck up with CDOs and the accompanying mortgage meltdown. The information economy is one of the few sectors that doesn’t have EPIC FAIL written across it right now (you can still thank Republicans for killing union and honest labor work).
Apparently Brooks thinks companies that suck off the Federal teat, like Halliburton, are somehow better than innovators. It’s amazing how people like Brooks — disconnected fuckwits — have no idea how the real world works. I lived through the devastation that happened post-cold war when Federal largesse was removed from the midwest. No more lucrative contracts making space missiles that didn’t work.
So people moved away from the heartland to places where interesting things were being developed, like, internets stuff, tubes and all. Somehow, in Bobo’s world, this is a bad thing. And giving money to a candidate that often “gets it”[0] in the information age is also a bad thing.
Disclaimer: I indirectly get paid by Harvard (among others). They are a client of my client. Apparently this makes me a bad person in the eyes of Bobo. Somehow doing bleeding edge information work is not as honorable as war profiteering.
[0] – open government initiatives that include standardizing government documentation in machine readable formats
pinola
I can think of nothing more horrifying than having ‘highly educated’ people who can think for themselves running our government.
I.am.petrified.
nightjar
Brook’s litany of Right Wing Code
code Talk.
Hope I didn’t leave anything out.
pinola
Oh, and could we get some stats on all these sweeping assumptions about Democrats. I’d like some backup, pls.
*crickets chirping*
Zifnab
I like how he pulled the number 50% out of his ass. Currently, the Capital Gains rate maxes out at 15%, with the ATM scrapping off a bit more by preventing you from taking deductions and the like.
With Obama as President, the capital gains rate won’t just revert to the 25%(?) rate we had before Bush, but catapult past that – and the 33%(?) earned income tax cap – to soak you for 50% of your income.
How did Brooks arrive at this number? Probably by drinking lots of fluids and then figuring out what value would make him pee himself in fear.
Dennis - SGMM
Brooks’ disingenuous piece of tripe invokes the specter of Goldman Sachs taking over. Yeah, right. Goldman Sachs employees contributed two tenths of one percent of Obama’s total ($571,330). I’m sure he’ll fall under their spell for less than a quarter of a percent.
Second in contributions were the employees of the University of California who gave $466,410. Looks to me as though only $5000 separates the guys who are taking over from the eggheads at UC. If UC pulls ahead will Brooks write a column prophesying the takeover of government by ivory tower intellectuals? I know; grass green, sky blue.
Sixth on the list of top contributors are the employees of National Amusements, Inc. at $322,050. National Amusements runs a chain of movie theaters, including the IMax’s. Look for a Brooks column wailing about how Obama is gonna’ make us all go to the movies.
Brooks real fear is that campaign funding no longer fits the model that he’s accustomed to which makes the shallowness and irrelevance of people like him glaringly apparent.
Here are the numbers from Open Secrets.org.
grandpajohn
Why would anyone even believe Assholes unsubstantiated supposed facts, as I recall asshole brooks has been caught before using made up data, and why do people even bother to read his crap.
At what time do people in this country get tired of having the media openly lying to them on a daily basis for example the blatent lying taking place about what Clark said. Hell, its on tape and the media liars are still lying about it with no fear of being called out for it.
When do enough of the public do as I have done and refuse to support any of the media liars with my viewership or with buying their papers, driving them to bankruptcy is the only way to get their attention that we are tired of their lies. I can use the internet to locate more unbiased news than you will ever find in the MSM
RSA
From opensecrets.org, we have these numbers for donor demographics (formatting will be screwed up):
That’s a little bit different picture than Brooks paints. It’s just as reasonable to point out that Obama has three times as many small donors as McCain, and that if 45% of the funding (rather than the number of individual donors) is worth paying attention to, Obama’s getting it from small donations while McCain’s getting it from big ones.
cleek
shorter Brooks: marginal rates? never heard of them.
Face
You’d be disconnected from the “real world” too if you inexplicably got paid easy 7 figs to pen non-sensical tripe, show up on TV every Sunday morning to discuss said tripe, and–incredibly–have it all published and broacast on major media outlets, despite having no actual talent or ability to creatively opine.
He’s the Kimbo Slice of the MSM.
Dennis - SGMM
I thought you were just being emphatic.
I thought you were just being emphatic.
Dulcie
nightjar, it’s like Brooks put all your coded phrases in the BrooksBot 3000 and came out with a column. And they accuse the Dems of class warfare. Projection: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
protected static
It isn’t that the airport isn’t US territory – it’s that since he was nabbed before clearing customs, he wasn’t on US soil and therefore not entitled to whatever legal protections that might afford him. Legally and technically speaking, true. Practically speaking, vile.
DrDave
I get the same nonsense from some of my Kool-Aid drinking Republican friends and acquaintances. They hated McCain when he was still competing for the nomination and Obama was “interesting” before he had locked up the nomination because they hate the Clintons even more than they dislike McCain.
But now that it’s Obama – McCain, they close ranks and McCain can do no wrong and Obama is toxic.
And it is all code; all the same bullshit that they ran out against Kerry and Gore.
Richardson
Why aren’t the GOP hacks writing about their own candidate? Shouldn’t they be singing the virtues of the GOP’s finest? It’s not like Bob Dole, I mean John McCain, is not exciting or anything. I’m sure he has a lot to offer America – like 4 more years of the same for starters.
Crust
In other words, Obama is a Manchurian candidate for Goldman Sachs? And what have people from Goldman controlled other than the office of Secretary of the Treasury? Brooks does realize that governor of New Jersey is not a federal office, right? Right? Man, Brooks is smoking some good stuff.
MattF
Yeah, class warfare, as seen from Bethesda.
dslak
Given the recent ruling on the right of habeus appeals for prisoners at Gitmo, I would expect a strong chance of this ruling being overturned on appeal. The “not US soil” argument didn’t seem to cut it there, since it was clear that the US is in control of the territory.
ThymeZone
Dog bites man. Film at 11.
A.Political
Face Says:
He’s the Kimbo Slice of the MSM.
——
Well said, and infuriatingly true.
DougJ
I’ve never understood why anyone takes Brooks seriously. He’s nothing more than a male, conservative, wonkier version of MoDo.
AkaDad
Not raising the minimum wage for 11 years, giving tax incentives to outsource high wage jobs, denying needed medical care in order to increase profits, eliminating the estate tax, busting unions, and cutting veterans benefits.
That’s what I call class warfare.
The Thinking Man's Mel Torme
Bobo in print is detestable enough, but there’s nothing like Bobo in full sound and vision on one of the gasbag outlets for stroke inducement.
One can always tell when he’s in the windup for one of this little bons mot (e.g. the Thai-restaurants-in-blue-states vs. churches-in-red-states thing) in that he starts lowering his head and getting that cheesy little grin. When he finally unloads, his head starts bobbing and he bounces in his chair like his ass had been dosed with itch powder. He probably wore on the upholstery with this one.
Didn’t we have ye olde revolution to purge ourselves of the toxic fops? Christ, in a right-thinking society, he’d be living in perpetual fear of swinging from a noose made from his own intestines.
dslak
TTMMT, part of what you’re putting your finger on is that Brooks simplifies the Midwest and central states as much as the supposed liberals who figure into his strawman arguments.
Brooks seems to think that the middle states are all composed of slack-jawed yokels who believe that Jesus spoke English and that the US was founded as a corporate theocracy. This, of course, is because Brooks and his ilk have never spent any appreciable time in the rural parts of the country and thus project a romantic picture of idyllic farming communities with “family values” and wealth passed down from one generation to the next.
This picture, of course, was never real, and the policies supported by Brooks and the like are often detrimental to the “traditional” ways of life in rural America that they claim to esteem so much.
Andrew
WHAT COLOR ARE THE COUNTERTOPS AT THE APPLEBEES SALAD BAR!?!?
Someone put Friedman in a taxicab so we can find out why all of this matters.
rts
Growing up in the NY suburbs (Nassau County) in the 1970s (which I doubt Brooks did) I know pretty well that ‘burbs were not exactly liberal bastions. In fact, in my home town we consistently voted for Republicans and against progressive Democrats both on a local, state and national level in the 70s and 80s.
DougJ
I find Bobo’s writing about “Red Americans” detestable. It’s condescending, devoid of sympathy, and, more than that, devoid of any sense that these people are human beings. It has all the flaws of Tom Wolfe’s writing and very little of the charm.
Decided FenceSitter
Re: Class Warfare
“It’s class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn’t be.” – CNN Interview, May 25 2005, in arguing the need to raise taxes on the rich.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – New York Times, November 26, 2006.
Quotes courtesy of Wikiquote
mark
If the Obama Money Machine isn’t stopped, we will have a president in the hip pocket of millions of voters!
Blue Raven
When the rich perform class welfare, it’s making sure every American can have a piece of the pie. When the lower classes note that their piece of the pie is burned, small, and getting smaller before they’ve even picked up their forks, they get told they’re being ungracious guests and could they please go back to the servants’ quarters and stop their silly insurrection.
Gregory
Since when are corporate managers not professionals?
On second thought, don’t answer that…
Fledermaus
I remember hearing Brooks on NPR during the ‘bittergate’ stupidity and he said ‘rural voters don’t like being psychoanalyzed by some ivy leauge elitist’ without a single trace of self awareness.
Xenos
Brooks was the hot new writer for the National Review back in the day, but WFB would not give an editorial position to a non-Christian. The fact that Brooks remains loyal to those creeps to this day demonstrates his folly, dementia, and servile nature.
He got a nice gig out of it, tho.
Teak111
Currently own stock in GS and G and feel these are the types of smart people I want running the country.
Both companies are weathering the current financial squeeze well enough. And GS especially is doing well as many of its competitors are taking billion dollar write downs or being bailed out by the Bush admin.
The people running these kinds of companies are smart and if they are donating to Obama, that tells me something important.
Thank you Mr. Brooks for continuing to inform the public about important matters.
Brachiator
Wow!. David Brooks and Karl Rove both have a thing about country clubs, don’t they?
But the Democrats will probably be too stupid to make full use of this, even though it would be so damned easy: “David Brooks in the New York Times admits that corporate managers, you know, the people who have downsized, outsourced, and laid off millions of jobs, vote Republican and desperately want to keep all the advantages they have.”
Don’t believe it. Class warfare is over. The rich won. I noted in prior threads that the Bush Administration rewards capital (investment and speculation) over labor (wages) and provides a strong incentive for killing the middle class.
Bottom line example: a prosperous family of 4 getting all their income of $250,000 from capital gains pays about $36,000 less in taxes than a prosperous family of 4 getting their $250,000 from wages.
The top tax rate on capital gains is 15%. The top rate on ordinary income is about 35%. Nobody is talking about changing the top rate on ordinary income, and because the tax system is progressive, there ain’t no such thing as taxing all income at 35% (or 50%). In the 60s, the top marginal rate was 70% and people were still able to make a boatload of money.
Oh, by the way, for 2008, some capital gains can be taxed at 0%. And this is the kind of stuff that Bush wants to make permanent. How do you like them class warfare apples?
Paul Krugman has actually been useful in the past showing how the tax code has been twisted into shifting tons of tax benefits from wage earners to the wealthy. The Democrats have been sorely lacking in leaders who can simply and clearly explain why Bush lies whenever he talks about cutting taxes.
You mean AMT (alternative minimum tax), which actually is another screw on the middle class, and which neither Democrats nor Republicans have the guts to fix.
Of course, some view the capital gains advantage as the ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) of the plutocrat.
Xenos
As for Arar, that looks to be the correct result. If he does not pass customs it is just the same as if the US did something illegal to him in a third country. Thus, this is a matter for Canada to take up, or to refer to an international court, if there is one with jurisdiction over travelers in international airports. If the jerks currently running the Canadian Federal government won’t do it, he may not have any recourse.
As a separate issue, this sort of thing is tremendously damaging to our international reputation, costing us in security, tourism, business in tremendous, long term ways, far in excess of whatever BushCo thinks they are getting out of brutalizing the poor sod.
Seanly
Schweet! I have a good buddy from college who’s a VP over there. I’d love to get in on the looting of our nation’s teasury!
gypsy howell
I’d say you are a little late to the party.
Our treasury secretary (Gosh! He’s from Goldman Sachs! Go figure!) has already engineered the further bankrupting of the taxpayer to bail out his IB buddies.
Calouste
Yes, yes and yes.
Even if a foreigner has a visa to enter the United States legally, they can still be turned away on a whim by the immigration officer. And because the area where international flights land is considered international territory, the constitution doesn’t apply and there’s nothing a lawyer officially can do for them. (This was told me in almost exactly the same words by my Fortune 500 company immigration lawyer.)
Abuses of this are numerous. Still wondering why travel to the US and foreign tourism revenues still haven’t recovered to pre- 9/11 levels 7 years later?
Brachiator
Brooks’ fixation with people from Goldman Sachs “assuming control” of the government is odd on any number of levels.
For example, did Bush not notice that Joshua Bolten was a former Executive Director for Legal and Government Affairs at Goldman Sachs when he appointed him to be White House Chief of Staff?
Jill
Brooks seems to believe that the “It’s OK to knock your own team” rule allows him to say “Elitist Jews are infiltrating our government.” Next up: Brooks’ column about the wisdom of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
I read the last few sentences of his column and had to pick up my teeth off the floor.
Delia
When I rule the world, David Brooks’ punishment will be this: he (and I think I’ll toss in Bill Kristol as well) will be confined to a small room and forced to listen to Tim LaHaye read his masterwork Left Behind series from the very first word to the very last. Erik Prince, the Christianist zombie leader of Blackwater will also be there to maintain order and dish out food from the Applebee salad bar.
This experience will put David and Bill in touch with the true nature of Red Christianist America, and maybe Tim and Erik will lead them in prayer, whether they like it or not.
David Hunt
What we’re getting out of it is Bush, Cheney, et al. not having to admit any form of mistake while in office and attempting to bury this under the rug of history. That gain is worth loads more than the reputation, safety, or wealth of the U.S. as a whole to those bastards
DougJ
If a non-Jew had said this, Brooks would accuse him of anti-Semitism.
binzinerator
Goldman Sachs = International Banker Joos!
Brooks contentedly licks the shit off wingnut dick with his reference to the ‘international Jewish banker conspiracy’ the wingnut base fervently believes in. The rightwing fucktards and their allies have been trolling for it for for a long long time.
binzinerator
People forget there were plenty of jews who collaborated with Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto. Brooks’ motivation is likely to be similar.
Innocent Bystander
Brooks – The street sweeper in Fractured Fairytales that follows the elephants in the parade. His job is to clean up the mess. Over the years, he’s done his job well. Problem today is, the elephants are pooping faster than he can clean it up.