Via Atrios, the Times now has an opinion columnist who may be worse than Bobo:
Bush knew a good thing when he saw it. As a candidate, he put his arms around Bruni, whom he nicknamed “Panchito” Bruni, and cooed, “You know we love you.” Later, Bush looked across a crowded room at Bruni and mouthed, “I love you, man.” Bruni did not mention whether he told Bush that he loved him back, but in relationships as in literature, it is always better to show than to tell. Either way, Bush sure knew his man. Bruni went over to the Gore camp one day and found out, to his apparent horror, that Al Gore not only did not love him; he did not even bother to come up with a nonsensical nickname for the writer.
Gore, Bruni complained, “made no effort. His energies were channeled into his campaign trail remarks, so dense with knowledge, so showy with digressions. He sweated the big stuff and muffed the small stuff.” To Bruni this was unforgiveable—the idea that a potential president thought it worthwhile to focus on issues rather than declaring his love for reporters—and Bruni more than made him pay for it.
Bruni was an awful political reporter and a worse food critic (I do like the blog that parodies him). I also find his general on-page demeanor to be too much of a caricature of society’s negative stereotypes of gay men. Maybe that’s what he’s really like, but it rubs me the wrong way, the same way it does when Tweety and MoDo start sounding like a poor parody of my Irish aunts and uncles.
Just Some Fuckhead
Can’t they just fire Bruni and have Brooks go gay a couple days each month?
Doug Harlan J
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Isn’t that what the Thune and Ryan porn is already?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I hear Bruni wears his gun outside his pants.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Doug Harlan J:
Yes, but he needs to do say it like Truman Capote would.
Hunter Gathers
@Doug Harlan J: But poor Bobo will only have Romney and Pawlenty to blow from now on. Unless Ryan gets drafted at the upcoming brokered convention next year, which will be 100 different kinds of awesome no matter who rises to the top of that epic clusterfuck.
beltane
How does a mediocre food critic get elevated to write about serious topics? Why not just hire a bunch of Wonkette commenters to write bi-weekly columns for the Times? Why not hire us to do it? Knowing how the game works they’d probably give the gig to Reality Check but that is really beside the point.
Martin
Dougj, I think it’s spelled Brüno.
beltane
@Hunter Gathers: It won’t be 100 kinds of awesome. We say this now, but when the convention actually happens it will be an grotesque carnival featuring performances re-enacting the seven deadly sins. We will all be more horrified than amused.
Emma
Looooverly. One more reason to not read the NYT. As if I needed new ones.
j low
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Just Some Fuckhead
@beltane:
I’m busy that day.
j low
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Makes me not want to be honest if it means I have to feel it.
Hunter Gathers
@beltane: I beg to differ. The Trump keynote speech alone will go down in history as one of, if not the, greatest train-wreck moments ever broadcast on television, let alone at a political event.
J.W. Hamner
Stick to politics chief. He’s no Sam Sifton, but he was decent.
Doug Harlan J
@beltane:
They actually should do that, though. Frank Rich was better than Bruni but he was never more than more pedantic, less current version of Wonkette, even at his best.
Doug Harlan J
@J.W. Hamner:
He was no Bill Grimes either. Compare him to Hesser, Grimes, Reichl, and he sucks.
Marc
There’s always good money to be made by playing up to society’s worst stereotypes of your caste. See also: Steele, Michael.
Valdivia
@Martin:
FTW.
J.W. Hamner
@Doug Harlan J:
Grimes’ and Reichl’s food criticism was before my time so I have no idea(Reichl’s tweets are nauseating though). Hesser writes freaking amazing recipe headnotes, but I’m not sure it’s comparable. If you’re saying the Times deserved better, I’ll give you that, but not that he was/is a terrible food writer. I think you are just letting your political distaste for him overrun his food writing.
I mean, if Bobo happened to be the best wine critic on earth you’d still call it all garbage.
Ash Can
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t think Bobo’s capable of going straight a couple of days each month.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ash Can: Haha
ETA: (Not that there’s anything wrong with being straight.)
Ally
I actually felt ill when I heard the Times was putting this guy on its op-ed page. I remember his coverage of Bush-Gore all too well.
What’s he been up to lately? Here’s one example of Bruni’s recent work:
“Pick me up. Calm me down. Banish my reserve. Banish some stranger’s. I’ve asked cocktails to do all of that and more. But to unclog my pores and erase my fine lines? I thought that was the province of dermatologists, not daiquiris. Silly, excessively sober me.”
The rest can be found in Bruni’s May 12 story, “Improve Your Skin By Imbibing — Radical or Fadical?”
dedc79
The times is embracing the Fox News model which is having commentary delivered by people who don’t know a thing about the topic they are discussing.
dedc79
Also, Pancho and Lefty is one of my all time favorite Townes songs and also one of the saddest songs ever.
Bokonon
On many fronts, the New York Times seems to have lost its ability to evaluate quality. Quality reporting, quality editorials, quality editing.
And what really strikes me is the smugness, insularity and self-indulgence of their product. It is as if they have lost their sense of smell. Or turned off their BS detectors … at least where a member of their club is involved.
That said … the NYT is still better than the Washington Post. Which has been descending faster the same direction, with greater cost cutting to their core news operations, a nasty and deliberate tack to the political right, and what has become a truly hideous editorial page.
beergoggles
Is this guy going to be behind the paywall? If so, the pending failure would be a feature.
Doug Harlan J
@J.W. Hamner:
I didn’t know about his political writing when I started disliking his food writing. I just don’t like his food writing.
BTW, Hesser was the restaurant critic for about six months in 2003 or so. She was great, tore everyone a new one.
I used to live in New York and go to eat all the time, I’m not speaking out of complete ignorance here.
Doug Harlan J
@dedc79:
Tecumseh Valley and Nothing make it sound like Walking On Sunshine, though.
j low
I love his stage story about getting pulled over by a couple of Texas highway patrolmen who just gave him a warning to get his tags renewed because their radio names were Pancho and Lefty.
Lydgate
@Ash Can:
Let’s hope for his wife’s sake that is the case.
dedc79
@Doug Harlan J: Tecumseh Valley I can only even listen to if I’m in the right mood. Otherwise I’ll be down the rest of the day.
that colored fella
I can’t wait for the inevitable nickname reference to one or more characters from Will and Grace.
Anyone want to kick off the list?
honus
Reading about the 2000 election took me back to those days and what I had forgotten- how good everything was before the press savaged Gore and the Supreme Court gave us Bush. Unemployment was negative, gas was .85 a gallon, there wasn’t any major war and we had a trillion dollar budget surlplus, all of which had seemed impossible 8 years before. I remember W himself joking “all I have to do is run against peace and prosperity.” The sheer amount of devastation to our country and the world that bunch wrought is mind boggling.
maus
How does he NOT belong as an opinion columnist? This seems pretty par for the course.
Tom Levenson
I swear that when I first saw a tweet saying Bruni was getting an NYT column, I thought that was an interesting gig for a model/actress turned political wife.
It truly did not occur to me that this hack could be getting the angry inches.
gogol's wife
@honus:
I still remember picking up the paper during the Clinton era, looking at the front page, and thinking, “Oh, nothing interesting ever happens any more.”
Jebediah
@dedc79:
True – I think I had to hear it about a thousand times before I could get all the way through without getting all misty. Granted, I’m a world-class sap, but still… And, of course, Bruni only did what he had to do.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gogol’s wife:
But now Republicans are “Americas Job Creators”. Ya know what Republicans really are? America’s Boogeyman. You’ve survived a horrific slasher attack, fought off yer predator. You’re bloody and beaten, gasping for breath, locked in the bedroom, thanking God you’re alive while you wait for rescue. Meanwhile, your attacker is outside setting your house on fire…… (cont)
Just Some Fuckhead
.. suddenly heat engulfs your room, thick smoke chokes under the doorway and the walls begin smoldering. You stagger to the window as the room flashes alight. You break the window with one ragged forearm, slicing your hand badly and struggle out the window, collapsing on the ground head-first in a pile. Off in the distance you hear a chainsaw growl to life… (cont)
Ija
I’m curious what you mean by this? You mean he’s “effeminate”? He sounds like a “drama queen”? What? This sounds too much like telling the effeminate gay men to say out of sight so all the macho gay guys can fight the good fight and show society that gay men are just like other men, too. Look, if you know for a fact he’s pretending or exaggerating for effect on purpose that’s one thing, but like you said, you don’t actually know if “that”, whatever “that” that you are uncomfortable with is actually what he is really like.
Ija
@Ija:
To add to this, just because something is “society’s negative streotypes” of a group does not automatically make that something a bad or undesirable thing that must be stamped out. Just because “society’s negative streotype” of gays are of effeminate gay men does not mean we need to tell all gay men to try and be more macho. Should we tell the Irish to stop drinking because that is “society’s negative stereotype” about them?
Just Some Fuckhead
Quit being a fucking drama queen, Ija.
Doug Harlan J
@Ija:
Okay, in real life, the gay people I know don’t refer to Lady Gaga every five minutes when they’re discussing restaurants.
Yutsano
@Doug Harlan J: Some of us, shock of shocks, can’t fucking stand her. Gay men are rather difficult to pigeon hole. I think that’s what really bugs homophobes.
Jebediah
@Yutsano:
You know, I don’t mind that they’re straight – really! I just don’t like it when they walk around flaunting their hetero-ness. Just keep it to yourselves, dudes!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Yutsano:
Keep telling yerself that.
Doug Harlan J
@Jebediah:
Look, I don’t like watching “The Man Show” and I wouldn’t like if if the straight male critics at the Times sounded like Adam Carola on the page…even if they sounded that way in real life.
Doug Harlan J
@Ija:
We should tell Peggy Noonan to stop showing up drunk on the Sunday shows. I have said this many times before.
Ija
@Doug Harlan J:
Maybe that’s just due to the fact that’s Bruni is a boring and insubstantial writer who tries too hard to spice up his tedious writings with current pop culture references. Why do you automatically assume it’s because he’s gay? Maureen Dowd does this too. It’s not uncommon among people trying to sound cool and “with it”
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: Okay…
@Jebediah: Heh. See what I have to deal with every damn day? They’re like everywhere now.
Doug Harlan J
@Ija:
Read his columns a bit and I think you’ll agree that he’s trying too hard to sound gay. There’s a Stuart Scott feeling to the whole enterprise if you know what I mean.
Jebediah
@Doug Harlan J:
I don’t much like it when Adam Carolla sounds like Adam Carolla… And at the risk of sounding like a dummy* who misreads conversations, I wasn’t accusing you of homophobia at all. I’ve just always been irritated by that “just don’t flaunt it” trope ever since I grew out of my own childish homophobia, around the time my voice changed, and sometimes wished all the homophobic fools could be shipped off somewhere very heterophobic – dose of their own medicine and all that. They can come back after a few years.
*Sadly, I am pretty certain that I am a dummy.
Jebediah
@Doug Harlan J:
What would be the point of a sober Nooners?
Doug Harlan J
@Jebediah:
I didn’t think you were accusing me of homophobia and I know what you mean about “not flaunting it”. I just think there’s something cartoonish about his writing.
Pat
Thanks for the heads up. Now I won’t even bother reading one of his columns. If Paul Krugman ever leaves the NYT there will be absolutely no reason to go there, unless of course if you are a poll watcher, they still have Five Thirty-Eight, but that’s about it.
Rihilism
@Doug Harlan J:
There is also something cartoonish about Dowd’s and Bobo’s writings. Shallow opinions are shallow opinions. Bruno’s “stereotypical” gayness has nothing to do with it. Clearly, Bruno is a shallow moron, but lumping him in with all gays that act in a certain manner simply perpetuates a negative stereotype. It assumes that one’s demeanor is indicative of intelligence or depth. One can be a “stereotypical” bitchy-queen and still express intelligent, well thought out opinions…
Ija
@Doug Harlan J:
But why would he? It’s not like he’s working in an industry where being “stereotypically gay”, whatever that might mean, is highly rewarded or something. You could make an argument that in certain industries, for example entertainment, acting in manner stereotypical of whatever group you belong to can lead to more opportunities. I just don’t think journalism is one of those industries. What possible reason would Bruni have for pretending to be more “stereotypically gay”, whatever than may mean to you, than he actually is? Certainly wouldn’t help in career advancement, unless you are implying that the sole reason NYT promoted him to be the op-ed writer is because he is gay?
Rihilism
@Doug Harlan J:
What on earth does this mean? How exactly does one go about doing this? The guy’s a shallow hack who should never have been hired to write opinions for the NYT, but the idea that he’s “gaying” up his column seems to be as shallow an analysis as anything Bruno is capable of…
ItAintEazy
@Rihilism: Yes, he does gay up his columns. Not that embracing your sexual identity in your writings is necessarily a bad thing, but he such a bad caricature of a writer that… well just read it and you’ll see.
Rihilism
@ItAintEazy:
Boy, I just don’t get the caricature. I see a gay man acting, well,…, gay. Not saying it’s the best writing I’ve ever seen, but do some people have such a serious problem with gay men who are mincing queens that they assume it’s just an act? I’ve known plenty of gay men who are this way and I never had a problem with it nor did I assume it was an act. Now, I suppose you could argue that this is not what you want from your restaurant critic, but it’s not as if over-the-top performances (regardless of the sexuality of the author) are unheard of in the food critic realm.
Addressing Doug, I kinda/sorta understand what you’re trying to say. But let me try to explain where I’m coming from by this example. I think it’s fair for someone to say they don’t like Oscar Wilde because they don’t think he is talented. But if someone says they don’t like Oscar Wilde because he tries too hard to act like a sissy, isn’t that saying more about that person’s opinion than it does about Wilde’s talent?