I was banned from commenting on the New York Times site after I suggested that the only good that could come of pairing Bobo and Gail Collins would be a murder-suicide. Looks like I was wrong anyway (from Steve Benen):
David Brooks: Gail, there I was watching the snow drift down on the Brooks estate in suburban Maryland last Saturday, when suddenly, after some spluttering and coughing, I was without power. Now I know how the Republicans feel.
Gail Collins: David, I think the Republican analogy would work only if your next step was to barricade yourself in the power station, turn off service to all the people who did have power and announce that nobody was going to do anything until the company promised to build its next generator on your block and employ all your family, friends and neighbors at handsome salaries to do the assembling. But I’m sorry, you were saying about the snow…
It’s not a Cole-quality rant but not bad for a quasi-Villager like Collins.
JGabriel
DougJ:
I’ll post again after I stop laughing. Don’t wait, it could be a while.
Edited to add: Does anyone else get that problem where the back of your head hurts if you laugh too hard for too long?
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mr. whipple
Wow. That’s a good smackdown.
Mark S.
I’m glad to see Bobo’s warming up to Ryan’s Roadmap for America’s
TeabaggersFuture, which consists of voucherizing Social Security and Medicare. If Republicans really endorse this snake oil, I all of the sudden feel a lot better about 2010.R-Jud
My hero. Seriously.
John Cole
@JGabriel: I laugh every time he reminds me of that quip.
PaminBB
In addition, the analogy requires Brooks to have been outside swinging on the wires with wild abandon, only to be shocked when they came down. He’s embracing the Repubs as victims fallacy, when they have no one but themselves to blame.
Nevertheless, good for Collins.
aimai
Poor Bobo, he must have pissed his pants there. In the rarefied world of “I won’t call you on your shit if you won’t call me on mine” that counts as pistols at dawn.
aimai
TR
A great line, but Collins has had plenty of good moments like this.
fraught
Gail Collins sometimes makes the sense that Modo can no longer manage. She was an editorial writer and you could tell which ones were her’s because they didn’t have that musty Times smell of old man crotch sweat and stale pipe tobacco.
beltane
What was Brook’s response? I bet MoDo’s response would be the praise the Republicans’ manly snow boots.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
You rock!
Emma
DougJ, you have taken the early lead for the decade’s best sarcastic comment!
Ash Can
OK, I really had to fight hard not to laugh out loud (very loud, too) at that whole post. If I had, Bottle Rocket would have badgered me mercilessly to find out what I was laughing about, and I can’t simultaneously guffaw and concoct a bogus story that’s good enough to snow a 10-year-old.
Bad Horse's Filly
Yup, you’re my hero. And I’m glad we get to say to everyone, that’s our DougJ
dr. bloor
Collins has never been wholly in the tank like some. She was near brilliant in her Newsday gig years ago, and I think she’s done a credible if far from perfect job of avoiding the decay in critical thinking that seems to come with lengthy gigs in the high-falutin’ editorial offices.
To be honest, your line about the murder-suicide is funny but your targeting system is way off in this case.
MagicPanda
Awesome stuff, except for the fact that (a) I don’t think anyone reads that Bobo/Collins column. I sure don’t. And (b) Collins’ snark was just completely ignored, just like all such observations are.
There needs to be a phrase along the lines of IOKIYAR which means “if you’re a liberal, no one can hear you, especially the media”.
Liberal: “People are dying because of lack of healthcare”
News reporter: “How bout those Saints?”
Liberal: “The GOP is lying again.”
News reporter: “Did you just say that Obama was weak?”
Sometimes, I feel like liberals are living under a giant cone of silence…
Mike in NC
In weather like this, we can only hope that there’s an Applebees convenient to the ‘Brooks estate’.
freelancer
@MagicPanda:
You were in the movie Twister, no?
eemom
you were banned from the NYT? Kewl! Can I have your autograph?
only place I’ve ever been banned was FDL, and anybody can do that.
eemom
Collins is generally palatable, especially when compared with the likes of MoDo. Except, of course, to Somerby.
SiubhanDuinne
Awesome! Is it a permanent ban, as in 4-EVAH, or is it one of those temporary go-sit-in-the-corner-for-a-week things, like John and you occasionally dish out to BoB?
demkat620
Now, that’s a smackdown. The usual GOP crap from Bobo.
Nice one Collins.
raff
I agree with TR; Collins, when she’s not trying to be MoDo-in-waiting, gets some good snark off.
And, DougJ… dude, I agree with you 98% of the time, but, honestly, suggesting a Bobo/Collins murder/suicide pact is more macabre than it is clever (altho’ it is kinda clever, but still… dude) & more than a little out of line. Seriously, I could see the exact same line coming from Anne Coulter, just replace Brooks/Collins with Pelosi/Reid.
I would find it hard to believe you thought you wouldn’t get banned for a comment like that. Just sayin’…
J
I agree with those who think that Gail Collins deserves a good deal of credit.
Oscar Leroy
Looking for something to do? Help Al Franken:
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/sen-franken-asks-our-help-opposing-nb
tomvox1
Gail Collins is a quasi-villager? Really? Have you ever read her columns there, Doug? Hmmmm…. Maybe because she writes for the Times you are tarring her with the MoDo brush but I think you are talking out the side of your neck on this one, pard.
tomvox1
For example, you could start here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/opinion/17collins.html?_r=1
M. Bouffant
Whoa! Going to have to start leaving more comments at The NYT to see if I can be banned. I want a badge of honor too.
ruemara
Man, that is both prime quality snark on Gail Collins’ part and prime quality rip on Dougj’s part. I love it.
Tax Analyst
Me likey comment by Gail Collins.
I don’t think any major news outlet would publish anything stronger.
PurpleGirl
I used to like Collins when she wrote for Newsday. After she moved to the NY Times… not so much.
Bill E Pilgrim
Yow.
Every time I’m tempted to think that David Brooks is just some muddled, somewhat moderate Republican, pulling those pained faces on Jim Leher’s show at the “extremism” of his fellow GOP members, he says something to remind me that he’s really a full-metal Wingnut from the nuttiest part of the wing.
jeffreyw
Damn, CNN is going on and on about he shouldn’t be eating any more of these.
Leaves one extra for me, so I can’t complain.
Oops, shoulda been on the last post re:Big Dog, sorry.
scav
@Bill E Pilgrim: Can’t wait for the vouchers for me to hire my own personal police, fire and armies too. just WAIT ’til you see the uniforms I picked up from the castoffs from the Village People’s Mardi Gras tour. But we have to establish a BJ secret handshake so my customs agents at the airports can move you over to the fast shoes-ok lane.
cat48
Oh, Gail can bring the snark. I often laugh out loud at her columns. She loves to mention Romney so she can bring up the family roadtrip where he put the dog on top the car in a carrier for several hundred miles. If Romney is in the column so is the dog. heh
Excellent rant by her on the Republicans.
Bill E Pilgrim
@scav: Yes because when you’re elderly, making complicated decisions about buying insurance from our fine and upstanding “health industry”, or perhaps just investing the money in the stock market instead, a business also rife with well-meaning brightly-scrubbed young people who are eager to help you grow that money to buy even more insurance– what could possibly go wrong!
JGabriel
eemom:
Is this going to turn into one of those threads where we all talk about the websites that have banned us?
The only place I’ve ever been banned was Groklaw, but that was back when the moderator was pressing the ban button like she was one of those coke-addicted lab rats looking for another hit.
Okay, I guess I’ve stopped laughing enough such I can post again. I still can’t decide which is funnier though, the murder-suicide crack or the fact Doug got banned for it?
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scav
@Bill E Pilgrim: wouldn’t want those dear brightly scrubbed HMO execs not making their preferred levels of profit and having to lick dog food* out of gold-plated cans or anything. (*caviar flavoured, but domestic! the horror!)
ellaesther
I do like me my Gail Collins, and that was just brilliant. (Suggesting a murder-suicide, not so much, but hey, reasonable people can disagree reasonably!)
Now I’m going to go read Gail again. And perhaps commit it to memory. Because it’s just that brilliant!
Violet
Gail Collins cracks me up. And good for her for this one.
@Mark S.:
If only the Democrats could learn to make hay with this kind of thing. Instead they’ll be all bipartisany about it and say that Ryan’s proposal has some merits and should be considered seriously, etc., ad nauseum. If the shoe were on the other foot, the Republicans would be screaming about how the Democrats want let grandma die, etc.
Democrats are pussies.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read comments, but I don’t see Gail Collins as a “quasi villager.” She’s one of the sanest voices in print and has had a lot of spot on columns.
Just up on NYT: Obama has edge over GOP with public
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/us/politics/12poll.html?hp
55% of respondents hadn’t heard of tea partiers. I am wondering if more and more Americans are turning off cable news.
Because:
“Americans blame former President George W. Bush, Wall Street and Congress much more than they do Mr. Obama for the nation’s economic problems and the budget deficit, the poll found.
They credit Mr. Obama more than Republicans with making an effort at bipartisanship, and they back the White House’s policies on a variety of disputed issues, from allowing gays to serve openly in the military to repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.”
Further into article, Nagorney quotes a South Carolina Republican who takes the GOP to task for obstruction.
Econwatcher
I must say, this blog has been on fire today. Cole’s rant left me wanting a cigarette (seriously), and the fun has continued. This sort of thing, and the palpable sexual tension between various posters, just keeps me coming back.
MagicPanda
@freelancer: No, that was supposed to be a Get Smart reference. Watched it as a kid (on reruns.. I’m old, but not that old)
Bill E Pilgrim
@Elizabelle:
I love this. I lurve it.
So let’s see, what does that do to those polls proving conclusively that “Americans approve of the tea party more than any other party”? When more than half of them have never heard of it.
inkadu
@tomvox1: Vampire-moose?
mr. whipple
Where’s my tension?
kay
@Elizabelle:
I like her too. She makes me laugh occasionally, which is more than any of the rest of them have ever done.
Mike Kay
@Elizabelle:
A lot of bloggers didn’t get this, but it was hard to paint the GOP as obstructionist when the Dems had a filibuster proof majority, even though the GOP was obstructing using shadowy procedure maneuvers, because there are so many obscure ways to gum up the gears aside from the filibuster, that they could fuck things, leaving fingerprints not visible to the naked eye.
Now, they can be painted into the obstructionist corner. It won’t happen overnight because there too many low-information voters, but a critical mass will build.
Mike Kay
@Bill E Pilgrim:
most americans who approve of tea parties, think it has something to do with Starbucks.
DougJ
@tomvox1:
She’s better these days, but in the early going of her latest tour at the Times she was a less amusing MoDo.
jwb
@cat48: Yes, I like the way she goes out of her way to bring up Romney, just so she can mention the dog.
Hiram Taine
I’ve mellowed considerably over the years, so much so that it would be easier for me to list the sites I haven’t been banned from than those I have.
1) Balloon-Juice
2) Ummm..
One interesting observation about posting on wingnut sites is that if you’re a DFH and post rants and call people nasty names quite often you’ll be allowed to continue, while it usually only takes one or two factual/logical/calm posts to get banished.
jwb
@DougJ: I disagree with this characterization. She’s had her dud columns, no doubt about that, but I see little resemblance between Collins and MoDo except that they are both supposed to be funny (but Modo seldom is).
bemused
Collins’ repub analogy is hilarious.
Has anyone read her book “When Everything Changed”? Worth reading?
chris
Yay! The site works! Finally!
Everything I need to know about Bobo Brooks I learned from Driftglass but dougj’s comment made me snort tea.
And for that I thank you.
Elizabelle
I am hoping the worm is turning and Obama is going to take the GOP and feckless Dems to task for not doing the public’s business.
Which is why people are reporting such dissatisfaction with government. It’s that Congress is not seen as addressing the terrible problems we face. It’s not just that we HAVE a government and it’s the main problem, as those who revere Saint Ronald would have you think.
On that note, a letter to the editor in today’s Long Beach newspaper suggested the US put Reagan on the fifty dollar bill, in honor of the centennial of his birth. (To sweeten the deal, writer suggested FDR on the twenty.)
On hearing this, a friend wondered why doesn’t anyone ever give Eisenhower any credit! I don’t recall that many disasters one could lay at Ike’s door, and he did call out the military-industrial complex.
Sly
Worth the ban, imo.
JGabriel
Elizabelle:
That’s because:
which was the answer from 4% of the respondents, was listed as a negative.
.
JGabriel
DougJ:
I agree with your assessment, Doug. Fortunately, Collins outgrew it — or just found her own voice again — after about 3-6 months.
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JGabriel
John Cole: I’m still cracking up every time I read it again. Fucking brilliant — it’s got that nice aphoristic symmetry, like a Wilde quote.
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carpeicthus
Yeah, sorry Doug, but Gail Collins is frequently awesome. She was better before she was a bit neutered as an editorial writer, but she was a great columnist in the 90s and her book America’s Women was freaking fantastic.
Lex
Pshaw. You don’t need to be WITTY to be banned from commenting at the NYT. All I did was suggest, in the comments to a recent Alex Kucinski (sp?) blog post about women with children agonizing about whether to cut off their long hair, that the Times needed to stop inventing “trends” that either had been around forever or never existed in the first place.
Another example, the recent piece from Chapel Hill about college women who supposedly can’t get laid because there aren’t enough men. The ratios were almost exactly the same at UNC when I was in college 30 years ago.
J. Michael Neal
@Econwatcher:
I’d give up the dramatic sexual tension for some actual consummation, thank you very much. Even if it does ruin the plot going forward.
Not you, Stuck. Get away from me.
tomvox1
@DougJ:
I call bullshit. Because MoDo is never amusing.
Doug, I think you are conflating “gets paid to write an opinion column” with “cannot possibly be trenchant or amusing.” This is a syndrome common to bloggers.
I blame this on a possibly toxic build up of Ramen Noodle MSG (or perhaps Cheetos dust) in the cerebrospinal fluid similar to that found with Ecstasy abuse…if most bloggers could afford that much E, of course.
David in NY
Gail Collins was perfect at (I think) the Daily News, when her beat was the NY legislature — sarcasm was really the only thing one could resort to in observing that institution (think Molly Ivins, who was actually funnier, and the Texas lege).
I have been a little disappointed in Collins since she got to the Op-Ed page because I’ve thought her columns, though often funny, were a little insubstantial (though not idiotic, a la MoDo, whose humor is similar but entirely scattershot).
I wish Gail would just pick a subject, say the US Senate (which is approaching state legislature levels of seriousness), and beat on it column after column. Would keep Krugman from being all alone crying in the wilderness, and would give her the focus she needs to do her best work.
Paul in KY
That was pretty damned good by Ms. Collins. About the best you can expect from a villager.