This is awfully close to self-parody:
Once partisan reconciliation is used for this bill, it will be used for everything, now and forever. The Senate will be the House. The remnants of person-to-person relationships, with their sympathy and sentiment, will be snuffed out. We will live amid the relationships of group versus group, party versus party, inhumanity versus inhumanity.
We have a political culture in which the word “reconciliation” has come to mean “bitter division.” With increasing effectiveness, the system bleaches out normal behavior and the normal instincts of human sympathy.
David Brooks has never said a word about a torture or expressed any sympathy for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died in a war he spent years pimping.
But when someone hurts Linsday Graham’s fee-fees, it’s time for waterworks.
Update. “Significant bipartisan support“. Heh.
And we need to start some kind of award for pundits getting emo about powerful people’s fee-fees. Maybe the Noonan-Lay award?
rob!
That’s a Balloon Juice tag if I ever saw one.
El Cid
A hallmark of the Brookstard — a pseudo use of socio-psychological theory to suggest that liberal-favoring actions are the result of awful psychological tendencies which could, of course, be prevented by adequate application of modern conservative preference.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ah, yes. That famous comity, those oh-so-important personal friendships that bridge partisan divides and lead to such great results. That Chuck Grassley (Max Baucus) used to drag out health care for six months while he sent out fund-raising letters about ‘death panels’ and made speeches about ‘pulling the plug on Grandma’. That Dick Shelby and Corker have used (Chris Dodd) to weaken Wall Street reforms down to nothing. Remember when Orrin Hatch abstained from voting so that his sick and dying bestest pal Ted Kennedy would not be rendered impotent in the Senate?
Not to get outragier-than-thou, but you could have said millions and been telling the truth.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
.
This is why David Brooks is full of shit, as is Graham and his seditious butthole senate wingnuts. Fuck em. They are the senate group actors Brooks is whining about.
m3872
Let’s research via LexisNexis search to see how many times BoBo forecasted the end of civilization when Repubs used Reconciliation to pass tax cuts …
Dave C
Sweet Jesus, Brooks should get a “Lifetime Achievement Poseur Award” from Sully after that bit of tortured prose. After reading that, I can’t shake the feeling that Brooks gets physically aroused by staring at his own writing.
Just Some Fuckhead
Sounds like Emo Stuck.
Ruckus
@m3872:
I know! I know! Call on me, call on me.
None?
Mark S.
Oceania will seem like a walk in the park if legislation can now be passed by the votes of just 51 Senators.
We’re all Winston Smith now.
williamc
This is why I hate hate hate reading David Brooks.
He gives a nice-guy, “aw shucks, we aren’t all looney” sheen to the crazy folks that he barely agrees with just because they are on his team.
This sentence in his closing paragraph encompasses exactly what I am talking about:
We have a political culture in which the word “reconciliation” has come to mean “bitter division.”
To whom does “reconciliation” suddenly mean “bitter division”? His tribal teammates in conservatism, who by the way, wouldn’t piss on him to put out a fire, they hate this pointy headed elitist “moderate” that much.
Oh, and the lies. Yeah, all the times that the Republicans used Reconciliation during the Bush Junta, it was bipartisan
all those times Cheney broke ties in Senate on party-line votes.
Goddamnit, I hate liars.
jl
People here are neither mature nor wise enough to understand the deep truths beneath Bobo’s seeming bromides.
When Senators Shelby and Bunning held up the nation’s business in order to save some crony corporate give aways for themselves, or for their political advantage, that was fine rugged self-reliant individualism, operating in a person to person mode, not group think.
And every since Tom DeLay, GOP hammers, wardheelers, enforcers, have operated in a fine old Anglo-Saxon tradition of person-to-person ‘negotiations’ with the GOP rank and file so scared shitless, er, I mean so impressed, that they operated as a solid thick as a brick turdlike group, but each participated in that group individually. Which is different from what the Demon-crats are doing now.
Do you understand now, little grasshoppers?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
More like butthurt fuckhead.
DougJ
You know, I like those “Malkiin nominee” awards and so on — we should have something like a Bobo Emo Award. But I don’t know if that is quite the right title. But something like that for when pundits cry about some powerful person’s feelings.
Menzies
@Jim:
This, pretty much.
I don’t think BoBo understands that this is exactly the kind of shit that pisses off regular Americans. The personal relationships in the Senate have proven enormously destructive to any kind of dialogue in the chamber.
PeakVT
The Senate will be the House.
Does that mean good legislation will no longer die in the Senate? That would be a nice change.
Jim Once
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Thank you, General. Exactly. And just allow me to say to this asshole (I refuse to call him by his fond BJ nickname) what one of our denizens here once stated so pertinently: Fuck you with a rusty chainsaw sideways.
Menzies
@Doug:
Call it the David Brooks Award for Emotional Displays on Behalf of Other People’s Fee-fees. Or something like that.
DougJ
@Menzies:
How about the Noonan-Lay award. Her piece about how Ken Lay died of a broken heart may never be matched in our lifetime.
kay
I’m taking this as a good sign. He’s grieving.
williamc
@Jim Once:
I think a rusty chainsaw is too good for him, fuck him with Dick Cheney’s dick, at least that way he can finally feel the warmth of real American conservatism.
Oh, and btw, whothefuckcares if the Senate operates on a majority vote basis? Who is concerned about DEMOCRACY enough to waste my brain cells reading about it? If Americans elect Republicans to run the country again anytime soon before they take their crazy pills and get some sense, we get what we deserve, and the nation won’t last long after they win. Progressives will be rounded up and put in camps because we are cancers on the nation’s body, everyone not white will be sent back to Kenya, and our government will be full of proud torturering Randian boobs.
Mark S.
Two Democratic votes = significant bipartisan support
mr. whipple
Someone needs to call the Whaaaaaambulance for Mr. Brooks.
mcd410u.
I’ve done the Chimay trio tonight in true French fashion.
Anyone know why the Texas curricular board hates Thomas Jefferson? This is the battle for the future being lost right now. Fuck.
Mike Kay
he whines about reconciliation, but not the filibuster. whaddya dick.
Mike Kay
@kay:
So are the Firebaggers who are in such a craze, they’re using right wing talking points, straight outta Limbaugh’s broadcast, which of course, violates their precious, cockamamie Overton’s window doctrine.
wag
fixed
danimal
Bobo drives me crazy because he looks so…normal…while he reluctantly concludes that the GOP party line is the correct course of action. He’s more than willing to criticize GOP tactics, but he always finds that the GOP party line is correct. He’s an idealogue posing as a rational actor. Rusty pitchforks aren’t good enough for poseurs like him.
wag
fixed
Tim O
No, Lindsay’s new tag should be “Lady Gram Gram”! Seriously.
Comrade Luke
Promise?
mcc
DougJ decided that he would spend three weeks not reading the Politico. But then it turned out EVERY WEBSITE IS THE POLITICO NOW ::Rod Serling raises eyebrow::
DougJ
@mcc:
Ha!
DougJ
@Tim O:
That sounds too much like we’re swishboating him.
I don’t have anything against Lindsey Graham, I think he’s better than most Republicans. It’s the way the press writes about him that bugs me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike Kay: I was just looking at one of my favorite sites, but tonight there was a post about how Obama sold out the public option, and above that an outraged post about the AG of Virginia being a birther. I don’t get why these people can’t get from point A to point B: Yes, Obama ran a good campaign (against an opponent weaker than even I thought possible pre-Palin) and won a healthy majority, but in one state he won, a state with two Democratic Senators, the voters elected a bigoted, birther AG and a governor with a degree from Jerry Falwell who thinks feminism caused 9/11 and Katrina (or something). The MSM establishment is having an emo meltdown because an obscure Senate procedure is being used to get around a less obscure Senate procedure, which all boils down to Constitutional majority rule. So maybe Obama can’t, in fact, force through single payer by raising a stern eyebrow at Jim Webb and Mark Warner. Just maybe. Huh? Ya think? No, they still won’t get it.
/fin de rant
Menzies
@Doug:
Given how much I’d like to give Ken Lay some wall-to-wall counseling, not a bad idea at all. I thought you wanted to keep Brooks in there somehow.
I recently awarded someone the Newt Gingrich Award for Butthurt Whining, and certainly the awardee (John Roberts) could have an award named after him for it.
There’s really no shortage of whiners on the right, is there?
Mike E
You know Teh Editors of Poorman have something special lined up for BoBo, when Kip Winger dons his special Spandex of Freedom. You can count on it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@DougJ: Did you just make that up? “swishboating”? That’s brilliant.
kay
@Mike Kay:
I take everything as a good sign, so don’t bank on my read.
I’m perpetually disappointed, but in the interval between disappointments I’m very hopeful.
It’s a trade-off.
DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, we talked about a bit in the Crist-Rubio race.
JAHILL10
@mcc
:- ) !!!!
I’m with kay. Brooks’ End is Nigh pose is a sign they know they’re losing and have to paint the Dem victory as some sort of death blow to civilization.
My guess is since McCain’s star seems to be (at last!!!!) dimming Graham is being groomed to replace him among the village commentariat. Wonder if he gives good barbecues?
sven
When precisely did the endless flood of human kindness and beloved fellow-feeling cease in the Senate?
It must have been when Preston Brooks nearly beat Charles Sumner to death for mocking pro-slavery Senators
(a quaint bit of Americana)
Maybe it was when Strom Thurmond led the longest solo-filibuster in history to prevent blacks from voting
(the individual’s rights must be protected)
When Senator Max Cleland was smeared?
(politics ain’t bean-bag)
How about when Republicans fired the Senate Parliamentarian when he would not give in to their hard-ball tactics?
(hey, the majority has the right to govern)
When Senator John Kerry was swift-boated?
(he was seeking the highest office in the land!)
When Republicans shattered all records for use of the filibuster?
(Republicans are just better at the game, what can I say?)
OR
was it when Democrats used reconciliation to amend (not pass) health care reform?
(the institutions of this once great nation will never recover
)
kay
@JAHILL10:
We agree on McCain-Graham too.
Graham is the new McCain. They need that character, absolutely.
Punditry grinds to a halt without the principled Republican maverick.
They’ve moved on.
JBerardi
It would be capable of actually kinda sorta, you know, doing something?
There’s just so much wrong with this sentence.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Leaving aside Graham’s personal life, I have noticed he’s been ramping up his Southern accent as he’s been getting emo about HCR and reconciliation. I noticed this when he was an impeachment manager, simpering about “what I know in mah hawrt”. In fairness, Clinton and Gore did the same thing. But I hate LG and I don’t want to be fair.
mr. whipple
Make way for the iron sausage.
Wannabe Speechwriter
I say the Tears of a Rapper Award.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sven: adding to that list: When Tom Daschle lost, on his last day, per tradition, all the Senators are supposed to get up and say something nice about the out-going Senator. Bill Frist (and Rove, no doubt) let it be know that a very dim view would be taken of any Republican who said anything nice about Daschle. All this comity shit is very much a one-way street, littered with the carcasses of Dems who buy into it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@sven: another one: A Fresh Air interview with Biden from, IIRC, summer of ’07, in which he was all but weeping about his great friendship with John McCain, saying how when BushRove went after McCain in SC 2000, he called McCain and said “where do you want me? what can I do? ’cause I know he’d do the same for me”. And he probably still believes that. Hell, Kerry probably believes it.
GregB
Filibusters are so divisive. Unlike accusing your political adversaries of planning on a genocide against senior citizens and the mentally disabled.
The nation continues its devolution apace.
kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Oh, it’s a load of crap. Ted Kennedy’s life-long dream was to pass health care. He was dead about twenty minutes and all his career-long friends on the “other side of the aisle” were gunning to replace him with someone specifically chosen to block any health care reform.
I hope he had other friends, is all I can say. The poor man lived his whole life thinking those assholes were his best buddies.
Mike in NC
Mere sand niggers who he’d never brush elbows with at the exclusive clubs in NYC and DC that he frequents.
Menzies
@Jim:
Of course it is. Democrats aren’t willing to piss people off and the Republicans know it, and the Republicans know that no matter what they do, their tactics will remain true to their message – which is based on anger and fear and has been ever since 9/11. It’s a win-win situation for them.
Sentient Puddle
OK, the notion that reconciliation should only be used if a bill has significant bipartisan support is moronic. If a bill has significant bipartisan support, then that implies with near-certainty that the bill has at least 60 votes. And if a bill has 60 votes, you don’t fucking need reconciliation in the first place because you can just invoke cloture.
SIA
Well, I’ve gotta give Bobo some love. He mentions Trollope.
Trouble is, no one on the other side does “think for himself and decide issues as he sees best”.
Mark S.
@kay:
I remember right after Kennedy died there was some speculation by some very dumb pundits that Orrin Hatch might change his vote on cloture out of respect for his old friend.
I don’t think that happened.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I’m sorry, but the use of the term “fee fee” twice in one post is not permitted.
Also, moreover,
Works for me.
Whatever gets rid of the fucking senate. Go for it.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
I’m sorry, but the use of the term “fee fee” twice in one post is not permitted.
Also, moreover,
Works for me.
Whatever gets rid of the senate. Go for it.
Mike Kay
@Mark S.: yeah, that was one of the wackos from the new republic.
williamc
@SIA:
Thinking for yourself in politics is part of the problem.
In Britain and France, the Prime Minister and the President, respectively, control the legislative agenda, and those members of the majority who stray from the majority party’s line usually eat shit. The Republicans have done this successfully in the US, but the Dems let any idiot who might have to answer to “a more conservative” electorate, “vote his/her conscience”.
This is what I don’t get about Democratic Party electoral strategies: how does one get elected as a member of a party in a district, campaign on how he’s different from the Republican, and when he gets the Congress, is allowed to vote against the party that he campaign for, and in fact, act just like a Republican? Are people really just that simple out there in the heartland that they don’t know who they’re voting for, they just know that since the Republican who used represent them screwed up so much, that now they want a Democrat who votes just like a Republican? Of course, I wouldn’t understand this, living in the district of civil rights icon John Lewis (D-Atlanta) in a section of town that wouldn’t elect Jesus to Congress as a Republican, but still…
(btw, for those who haven’t read the links, I highly recommend Dylan Matthews series at Ezra Klein’s place on the politics of different nations, totally fascinating and accessible!)
Anne Laurie
@williamc:
Well, to be fair, I wouldn’t piss on BoBo under those circumstances either. Although I might bring some marshmallows… to toast over the flames.
Agree we need a special tag. “Butthurt Pundit Emopants” isn’t quite right, is it?
Tim O
I withdraw my remark.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Speaking of emopants, I just dropped by my former bloggy haunt, where the purest of the pure are in full meltdown, bewildered that people are being mean to Dennis, and confused and butthurt that labor is betraying Troo Progressives by supporting this giveaway to insurance companies, the one that the insurance companies are spending ten million dollars (just this week) to defeat.
fourlegsgood
@mcd410u.:
Easy, Jefferson was the first writer to talk about the separation of church and state. Oh, and our goopers are bat-shit insane.
williamc
@Anne Laurie:
Hey lady, I’d pay good money to see you pop a squat over a burning David Brooks though, cause if there is one thing that I know about conservatives, its that they are a kinky bunch, and he’d probably love it, but its hard to feel sexy when you’re on fire. Its the cosmic equivalent of giving poor people tax cuts: what good is this thing that people really want (tax cuts/golden showers) when you’re in this horrible situation (poverty/being burned alive).
I don’t like Noonan-Lay either for a tag, too deep to get.
How about “Uncle Lindsaypat’s Dashboard Confessional” for this tag, to convey his “Hee-Haw/Gone with the Wind” complainin voice, and his emo, whiteboy whine?
fourlegsgood
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Former haunt… that wouldn’t be Eschaton, would it?
Also, @Sentient Puddle:
Can we just stipulate that anything and everything the GOP says is moronic?
jimBOB
@kay:
Harry Truman once said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
DougJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
On my old blog, they’re defending Eric Massa. So it could be worse.
Ash Can
Dear Bobo:
YOU LOST. Get over it, already.
Sincerely,
The 2008 General Election
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@fourlegsgood: Indeed it would. Shocking what happened to that place.
Anne Laurie
@kay:
Nah, Teddy wasn’t stupid, just optimistic. He knew Orrin and the others were vicious, treacherous, greedy fvckstains… he just chose to believe that setting a good example might someday crack the tiniest chink in the armour of their blind Rethug self-righteousness. And if it didn’t (of course, it didn’t) at least Teddy had the satisfaction of knowing that he’d behaved virtuously. It’s a very Jesuitical concept, but that’s how Teddy was schooled.
FlipYrWhig
@williamc:
Ah, but in some of those districts the key to getting elected as a Democrat is to campaign on how you’re different from the Republican _and_ those free-spending, tax-hiking, homo-coddling Democrats from The City.
Chuck Butcher
@FlipYrWhig:
Ask Rahm and the DLC that question. Or quit acting like a DFH…
M. Bouffant
Ties in w/ the Douthat column (as noted several posts ago) where he bemoans the lack of sympathy for poor ol’ G. W. Bush, who screwed things up in Iraq, even though his intentions were the bested ever.
Emotional lives of rich old white Americans: Vital.
Hundreds of thousands murdered in our name, w/ our money, in an illegal war by sociopaths like Cheney & Bush: Whatever. (If it gets that much mention.)
tc125231
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Apsalar
@williamc
Heh. My coworkers are giving me strange looks and wanting to know what’s so funny, but I’m in China just now, and there’s no way I can explain it.
asiangrrlMN
@williamc: I read the last sentence as “…full of torturing proud Randian boobs”, which perked up my attention for a minute.
DougJ, you are on fire. Lindsey Graham’s fee-fees. That’s excellent.
David Brooks/Broder can bite me. Yeah, not elegantly put, but so what? His oh-so-cultivated genteel manner bugs the shit out of me. Then again, pseudo-intelligence has always done that to me.
RSA
Jeez, and people accuse liberals of being cloyingly sentimental. At least children and puppies are cute. Brooks is getting teary over a hundred white guys in suits (to a first approximation).
Aimai
He’s getting teary over 41 elderly white guys. He’s all fuck thevdems, genteely, whetherbthey see in the minority or the majority.
Aimai
chopper
@JBerardi:
what, you mean instead of 100 guys sitting on their dicks all day arguing about how they don’t want to get to work, you want them to actually *accomplish* something? go back to russia, comrade.
superking
What I love about Brooks article is that he starts out by trying to connect the institutional design of the House and Senate to overly broad generalizations about human nature. As if the current organization and rules of the House and Senate are NECESSARY due to basic human reactions and psychological limitations.
It occurred to me recently that conservatives always seem to be essentializing irrelevant details or at least the wrong details. This is part of the reason they can be so tone deaf about race–they don’t yet realize that a person’s race is an irrelevant detail, and they are totally willing to decide what people should want based on the individual conservative’s perception of the characteristics of the race. Other examples abound from foreign policy to the culture wars.
And now we have David Brooks essentializing parliamentary procedure. Classic.
slippy
You know what’s awesome about this? People are catching on to what a thudding tool Brooks is and letting him know in comments, and it’s obvious that neither he nor his toolmasters like it. The column above was accepting comments just minutes ago, but once the blogosphere went to feeding on the sad carcass of Brooks’s foursquare against reality thesis, the comments section closed up with a snap.
Brooks has a super-thin skin, and cannot handle being criticized. Or his paper can’t handle it. Either way, seeing a major NYT column closed to comments after a whopping 20 entries is hysterical.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@tc125231: Our very own Tinkerbell
Barbara
Actually, as for awards, I don’t think it would be useful: this column is in a class by itself, a lifetime achievement of trying to sound reasonable in defense of the indefensible. It’s like, “we asked them nicely, we certainly wouldn’t have tortured them if only they had told us what we wanted to hear, ergo, it’s totally their responsibility that we resorted to torture.” Comparisons to excuse making rapists and wife beaters are completely unintended even if totally appropriate.
Aaron Baker
Edmund Burke, what crimes are committed in thy name!
Osprey
Haven’t had time to read all the comments but something along the line of the
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE AWARD
Sorry if it’s been mentioned.
Raje
Jon Chait is refering to this column as the “platonic ideal of a David Brooks column”… in the process of ripping it apart, of course.
Felonious Wench
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Lexicon entry, and I intend to whine on every open thread ad nauseum until it’s there.
Felonious Wench
@Osprey:
This.
Sentient Puddle
I know we’ve sort of picked up on the idea, but Ezra lays it out in condensed form:
Menzies
@Osprey:
I third this.