I’ve read Douthat’s Times piece twice now, and I swear I have not come up with a point other than “HAHA YOUR TURN NOW! SUCK IT!”
Shouldn’t a Times op-ed have a bigger point than something that could fit in a LOLCAT?
Never mind. Dowd still works there.
Duvall
To govern is to choose. But with choices like these, liberals may find themselves pining for the days when somebody else was the decider.
Let me think about that for a moment.
Errr, no. Not exactly.
Ryan S.
I like the caption under Dough’s pic. Why, Susan your looking rather doughy today…
greynoldsct00
What happened to Going Galt today John?
steve s
If i were made emperor of the NYT, as I walked in the door I’d immediately fire Modo, Friedman, and Douthat. And I’d glare at David Brooks hard, before walking past him.
I’d replace them with Ezra Klein, Ed Brayton, and Howard Dean.
Comrade Stuck
I think it is the wingnut version of stream of consciousness writing > with the general theme of for the past 40 years, we conservatives have fucked things up so bad, you liberals will never fix it, he! ha! ha!.
It’s a subconscious theme , but a theme nevertheless.
KRK
Dude, life is too short and Douthat is a buzzkill on any day, let alone your birthday.
Happy birthday, John!
celticdragon
MoDo is funny, and witty (abeit snarky) in a way that alleged “intellectual” Douthat will never achieve. MoDo therefore retains actual reading entertainment value. Douthat, for all his pretentiousness, does not.
schrodinger's cat
Hey, most lolcat captions display far more creativity and intelligence than any column Douhthat has written so far. Ceiling cat disapproves this comparison. Besides cats are much cuter and smarter, with or without captions.
slippytoad
Yes, Ross, I long for the days when an illiterate buffoon with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement spoke for my country.That’s why I’m going to vote for a Sacha Baron Cohen character in the next election.
Comrade Stuck
@KRK:
After reading that article, my synapses shut down, the snark left, and now Mr. Galt is knocking at the door.
Comrade Jake
Unfortunately, there is some truth behind what Douthat’s written. Is there any doubt that there’s not much of any leadership in the Democratic party? I mean, that’s the real point here – there’s no genuine leadership. I think Cole has made this point before: without Obama, the Dems would be just as lost as the GOP.
bob
why are you linking to this?
JenJen
I mean, really? Who talks like this?
This liberal will be pinin’ for the fjords before I’ll be pining for those halcyon days, the wistful decades under the thumb of GOP —> Wingnut —-> Neocon policy. Is Douthat arguing that liberals are more content to be bitching than governing? I think he may have it a bit backwards, no?
lucslawyer
How does one pronounce Ross’ last name…doubt-hat or do-that?
The Grand Panjandrum
I think this column should be bookmarked and saved for later “reference” when we’ve gone down the road a bit furhter. If anything this piece should be teleported back to early 2001 and written for Bush and the Gang. Jesus.
schrodinger's cat
I think it is Ding bat or may be Dough boat.
Woody
Douhat? How about “Asshat?”
Talk about someone in love with the vision of their own voice.
Folks who cant grow a real beard should be talked out of chin-pubes, if not by their friends, then by the hilarity of their adversaries.
Matt
Can you imagine the self-satisfied smirk on Douthat’s face when he wrote these lines. Its like one half Spiderman and one half idiocy. But its lines like this that make writers New York Times columnists.
Notice how lame this is, it feels like someone trying to hard to be clever, but who in actuality is a pretty boring/lame person.
For. Crying. Out. Loud.
Zifnab
So, if I am to understand Douche-hat’s argument, a health care bill will cost money. Americans want to have health care AND tax cuts AND not pay for either of them. This makes politics hard.
You give Douthat too much credit, John. That was a thousand words of text, but he didn’t say much of anything at all.
Interrobang
A comment almost as substanceless as his op-ed: If I saw that guy walking toward me in the dark, I’d scream as loudly as I could manage and move swiftly in the other direction. Creepy-lookin’ fellah, inne?
Interrobang
A comment almost as substanceless as his op-ed: If I saw that guy walking toward me in the dark, I’d scream as loudly as I could manage and move swiftly in the other direction. Creepy-lookin’ fellah, inne?
Indylib
@Comrade Jake:
I have hope that after a couple of years with Obama as an example the Dems start to regrow some damned spines. We talk about how short a time it has been since Obama has been in office and it’s an unreasonable to expect that he has had time to fix everything that Shrub, Darth and Co. fucked up. At least up to a certain point, I think same has to be said for the Dems in Congress. It’s going to take a while for them to break the habit of giving into wingnut fearmongering and hysterical bullshit.
With Obama’s leadership and some serious public support for a more progressive legislation, the decent Dems will be more willing to stand up for what’s right and the bought-and-paid-for jackasses will be easier to separate from the herd, then we can cull the suckers out, boot them out of office and replace them with some real progressives.
demimondian
@lucslawyer: “Douche-hat”
superking
What’s so ridiculous about his column is he chalks republican failure up to the actual necessity of governing rather than the stupidity of their ideas–as if all those “compromises” they had to make were what caused their downfall. Of course, no one can actually name one of those compromises because Republicans never had an interest in governing well. They just did whatever crazy shit they wanted.
There was a little article on slate a while back that said his name is pronounced dow-thut. Fuck him though, he’ll always be douche-hat to me.
truculentandunreliable
@Duvall: This sounds like a creepy abusive ex to me. Like, he slashes her tires and then helps her change them and says “Baby, you NEED me around. You can’t take care of yourself. See what happens when you try to take care of yourself?” In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if Douchehat has actually pulled this exact stunt.
Zifnab
@superking:
He actually believes in their ideas (at least on paper). Liberal Media strikes again!
superking
He’s also suggesting in large part that the United States is essentially ungovernable. I don’t know what to make of that, but it strikes me as glaringly dumb. I guess it is also a nice excuse for conservatives when they fail. “Our ideas weren’t bad, it’s just no one can really govern this fucking country.”
Why does Ross Douthat hate America?
gex
So is he admitting that Republican/conservative rule has left us in a position with no good choices? Because yes, that sucks, but it certainly doesn’t mean we long to return leadership to the party that brought us to this point in the first place.
I had no idea conservatives were actually this proud of fucking things up.
TenguPhule
He hates us for our freedom.
Political Pragmatist
The entire conservative ideology can be summed up in one very simple word: Cynicism.
There is no end to how deeply conservatives hate America. That they made the People believe liberals hate America should leave us in awe, and finally willing to fight back.
America is a community and conservatives hate it.
Surly Duff
The fact that he does not even understand the health care system indicates that he should not even be involved in the discussion.
What the hell does he think happens now with health care determined by market forces? I suppose I should find it comforting that instead of a bureaucrat handling how insurance is provided to the public, we leave people uninsured, and that for those of us lucky enough to have insurance have a for-profit insurance analyst determining what procedures and drugs are and are not covered. How is the current option better than the propsoed option? Bureaucrats? That’s it? Look, I get denied certain procedures either way, if the government is involved or with my insurance provider makes the decision. Only option 1 provides more people with insurance, option 2 leaves those people in the cold.
Is lack of comprehension a requirement to write for the NY Times? Because I can get really, really drunk and start writing B.S. better than Douthat if someone wants to pay me. The only nonsensical statement in the entire article is the last one: “Ross Douthat’s column appears on Mondays.”
Yes. It sure does appear on Mondays.
Kevin
Wasn’t John supportive of Ross when he first got the column, saying he didn’t suck and it was a good choice? The “Ross’ new column is stupid” seems like a weekly blog post now. I think we need a retraction of the previous claims of quality John.
Crockpot
The more I read, the more I realize, I’m no longer reading ‘Conservative’, I’m reading ‘Authoritarian’. The two have long been related but the Authoritarians finally drove out or killed all the Conservatives.
I appreciate the conservative notion of not jumping in with both feet but wading in to check things out; but these days you don’t hear that at all. All you get is appeals to authority, security, or religion.
CapMidnight
found yesterday’s truth
Colette
@Interrobang:
To hell with the photo – this will always be my mental image of Douthat.
DFH no. 6
@Political Pragmatist:
Political Pragmatist has it exactly right. I’ve found for over forty years that all evidence shows that the underlying basis of conservatism is cynicism.
There’s more to it than that, of course, but conservatism at its heart is deeply suspicious and believes the worst of people and their motives (wretched sinners, etc.), which is why conservatives always look to an Authority (God, King. religious leader, aristocracy, political demagogue) to tell everyone what to do and keep the untrustworthy rabble in line or The Other at bay.
The Enlightenment grabbed this worldview by the neck and shook it like a terrier on a rat, ushering in the modern world (not an unalloyed blessing, I’m aware). That’s why conservatives have fought so hard and so bitterly against the liberal values of the Enlightenment lo these many centuries.
Oh, and Dean Broder had Dope-hat’s same dipshit message in his recent op-ed that the AZ Republic was happy to print today in its editorial pages: Democrats are finding governance in these difficult times to be, well, difficult, and are “pining” for Bush as a ready target, but the Smirking One has been mostly silent and so is frustrating the Dem’s hopes in this regard.
Yeah, that’s right, we’re “pining” for Bush. Cheney, to say nothing of Gingrich, Michael Steele, and the on-going clown show of teabagging, Rush Limpballs, the Wasilla Hillbillies, and the Congressional Repubs, have of course drawn no notice at all, being quiet as church mice and practically invisible on the TV.
If only we had Bush to kick around some more.
What a maroon!
demimondian
@TenguPhule: He hates us for *free*? You mean he isn’t even payed to hate us? He does it gratis?
matoko_chan
No, just like Sarah Palin, he hates us because we can read.
ET
Every time I read a post about a particular op-ed or a situation like Dan Froomkin’s I think the newspaper world would be much better if they jettisoned their op-ed section. I seriously don’t think they add much to intelligent discourse even when I agree with them and generally think the paper would be better served using some of that page(s) for ad space or real news articles. If you want opinion – intelligent or otherwise – there are lots of independent blogs that would serve that purpose without the cost.
Persia
@Duvall: Yeah, I’m pretty much okay with Bush not American-flagging himself all over Iran.
asiangrrlMN
I pronounce his name Do-that, but I call him something entirely different in my mind. If I were to run the NYT, I’d get rid of everyone on the op-ed staff except for Krugman, Blow and Kristof. Ok, maybe Rich could stick around, too.
I would add Eugene Robinson of WaPo., Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor at Princeton, often guest on the Rachel show, serious hottie, Margaret Cho because she’s fierce and funny, John Cole as my token white guy (and because he can write the pants of any of the people I’d kick off), and a few other diverse voices. For my conservative, I would choose… can’t think of one.
Barry
steve s
“If i were made emperor of the NYT, as I walked in the door I’d immediately fire Modo, Friedman, and Douthat. And I’d glare at David Brooks hard, before walking past him.”
Why? – from what I’ve seen of the NYT building, with those horizontal bars all over the exterior, it’d be trivial to crucify them there. No trees need be cut.
In fact, there’s enough ‘enhanced standing’ space to do all of the neoconmen, and probably even all of the Wall Street criminals.
The potential………..
Wile E. Quixote
@steve s
If I were made emperor of the NYT I would immediately fire MoDo and Friedman. Douthat and Brooks would be sent to Pakistan to cover the Taliban, and if they got kidnapped, well, bummer dude. I would then replace them with Matt Taibbi, Radley Balko, Ezra Klein, Dan Froomkin and solicit tons of guest editorials from Rick Perlstein and Andrew Bacevich. I would also have a section of the newspaper that was dedicated to mocking Sunday morning news shows and have a weekly column called “Stupid shit that those inbred morons at the Washington Post printed this week” which, just in case the WaPo hadn’t printed anything egregiously stupid that week (And what are the chances of that?) would fall back on mocking George Will and David Broder. I would also have another column that dissected and thoroughly mocked the stupidest thing posted on a political blog in the prior week.
My editorial guidance would be fairly laissez faire, with a few exceptions:
– I’d have a
group of erudite and pedantic editorial stormtroopersfact checking staff made up of former Jesuits, Jeopardy champions, cranky reference librarians andgrammar queensstrict grammarians who would be armed with tasers and empowered to use them in case someone went off the rails like George Will did with that stupid global warming column a few months back.– In an effort to reduce bullshit and euphemisms every staffer would be required to read Politics and the English Language and 1984 by George Orwell, The Chicago Manual of Style and The Elements of Style by E.B. White and William Strunk.
– Using anonymous sources would be strictly limited and require editorial approval. The only time that the use of an anonymous source would be approved is if revealing the identity of that source would jeopardize their lives. This bullshit where newspapers act as a conduit for government lies told by “anonymous sources” needs to stop.
I would also make the following changes to the newspaper’s style book.
– The word “orientated” would be banned. The correct usage is “oriented”. Once you go through an “orientation” you have been “oriented” not “orientated”.
– Charles Krauthammer would be referred to as “Doctor Strangehammer”. William Kristol would be referred to as “Billy Kristol” or “Kristol Meth”. Any article mentioning Rush Limbaugh would have to refer to him as “morbidly obese right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh” or “thrice-divorced right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh” or “former oxycontin addict and right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh”.
– The euphemism “enhanced interrogation technique” would be banned, the correct word is “torture”. Anyone violating this rule, or any of the other rules in the style book, would be
torturedsubject to enhanced editorial techniques by theeditorial stormtroopersfact checking staff until theygot their minds rightwere fully in compliance with editorial policy.I’d also have page three girls, but I realize that not everyone likes looking at pictures of semi-naked beautiful women so right after that I’d have the page four boys. Plenty of cheese and beefcake. Oh, and I’d steal a page from the WSJ and have at least one front page story every day on something that nobody ever really heard of, such as Uzbekistani air-mandolin players, but which is actually pretty interesting when you read the article.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and here’s a well-written piece of NYT editorial page mockery. Money quote:
PeopleAreNoDamnGood
Shorter Doutasshat:
Bush was right, being president is really, really hard!
oh really
Douche-hat is just making the case for a single-payer system. Obviously, what we need is an entirely new system, not just a bunch of stuff velcroed on to the old system. Thanks, Douchey.